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(I}. Mo dsia appear to exist for the accurate delimitation of tribal boundaries, and thii Hap is only approximate.
(2J. The boundaries of Vai. Goto. Kiai, are unknown ; the trim, and Bulsm (Sherbro), are virtually swallcu/td up tj Vie Uendi.
North of Frietou/n there are only scattered communities of Butsm

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REPORT

ON .

SIERRA LEONE.

NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS, M.A., F.RA.I.

Government Anthropologist.

PART I.

LAW AND C

OF THE

TIMNE AND OTHER TRIBES.

LONDON :

HARRISON AND SONS.

„\6

1916
(Copyright.)

LONDON :

HARBISON AND SONS, PEINTEES IN OEDINAEY TOj-HIS MAJESTY,

ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

IV. — Religion

V. — Cult of the Dead

VI. — Witchcraft

VII.— Satka, Wanka, etc.
VIII.— Ritual Prohibitions ...
IX.— Divination, Ordeals, Omens

page

I. — Introductory

II. — Demography

III. — Paramount Chief -°

X. — Marriage 91

103
108
118

XL — Kinship

XII. — Birth, Twins, Circumcision

XIII.— Burial

XIV.— Totemism 13 -

XV. — Secret Societies 143

XVI. — Law, Criminal 1)3

XVIL— Slavery

XVIIL— Inheritance, Land, Debt

XIX.— Farming and Crops !"-

XX. — Technology and Science 1<<

Note on Botanical Features, by Dr. O. Staff... 181

Glossary •■• 1°"

Index 189

138
162

LIST OF PLATES.

Map — Showing Distribution of Tribes, by
Major (now Lieutenant-Colonel) C. E.
Palmer, D.S.O., R.A., formerly attached
to the Sierra Leone Battalion, West
African Frontier Force... ... ... Frontispiece

Facing page

I. — (a) Susu "Weaving; (b) Suspension Bridge ... 11

II. — (a) Timne House; (b) Limba Stone House ... 12

III.— (a) Konten ; (b) Timne Girl 20

IV. — (a) Sanko ; (b) Satimaka 28

V. — (a) Koranko Image; (b) Maskers (Timne) ... 39

VI. — Sacrifice : (a) For Health ; (b) For Good Sleep 41

VII. — Sacrifice : (a) For Bad Dead ; (b) For Farm ... 43

VIII.— Susu Boy 60

IX. — (a) Atettot ; (b) Sena 84

X. — Timne Man (Sanda) 90

XL— Timne Man (Yoni) 96

XII.— Timne Woman (Sanda) 110

XIIL— (a) Bundcj "Devil"; (b) Circumcision Mask ... 117

XIV.— Graves : (a) Timne ; (b) Susu 129

XV. — Timne Woman (South) 140

XVI. — Yalunka Man and Woman 146

XVII.— Limba Girl 152

XVIII.— Koranko Man 160

XIX, XX.— Pot Making (Sanda) 177

L— INTRODUCTORY.

The colony and protectorate of Sierra Leone lie between
7° N. and 10° N. in latitude, and 10° 50' W. and 13° 50' W.
in longitude, with a total area of about 31,000 square miles,
and a native population of more than a million and a quarter.

The area near the coast is, with the exception of the
mountainous region near Freetown, uniformly flat and, in
the rainy season, in many parts swampy. Higher ground is
found eastwards towards the Liberia n border, and hill
country is entered soon after crossing the Seli on the road to
Kaballa, which lies fully 1,200 feet above the sea, with
surrounding hills perhaps 800 feet higher still, some of them
occupied by Limba villages built in part of stone.

The rivers run in the main from north-east to south-west,
the Moa, Sewa, Taia, Seli (Eokelle), Kabba (Little Scarries),
and Kolente (Great Scarries) being the most important,
though rapids often make navigation impossible not far
from the mouth. The Seli takes its rise not far from the
head- waters of the Niger, here known as the . Joliba.

Except in the hill country in the north-central area
vegetation is exceedingly rich, and there are more than 1,500
species of trees and plants, exclusive of rice and cultivated
vegetables.

Among the animals may be mentioned the chimpanzee,
on the Scarries and in the area between Freetown and
the Liberian borders, the hippopotamus and pigmy hippo-
potamus, elephant, bongo, cob, bush buck, and a number of
duiker ; leopard and many kinds of cat, dwarf buffalo, and
wild pig.

Among the birds, guinea fowl, francolin, greater and lesser
plantain eaters, bustard, and many kinds of duck are found ;

snares are set for birds, especially near the marshy areas in
the south, where spur-winged geese are plentiful.

Snakes are abundant, but apparently not dangerous as a
rule, though the spitting cobra is not uncommon.

Scorpions and land crabs are found, and fish are plentiful
in the rivers, though until recently only eleven species were
known from the whole area.

There were comparatively few opportunities of ascertaining
facts as to the prevalence of disease, but the natives do not
suffer to the same extent as the Nigerian peoples from
indolent ulcers. The various tribes showed a marked
difference of character in respect of the readiness with which
they submitted to treatment. Except in Susu villages it
was very rare for patients to accept an invitation to come
for medicine ; but Susus were everywhere ready to come
forward, even when the tribe among whom they resided
showed no inclination to do so.

Old men seemed far less frequent than in Nigeria, but no
exact estimate of age was possible in the absence of historical
events of known date as a starting-point. There can be no
doubt that the wars, which went on till some twenty years
ago, swept off masses of the population ; in one town I was
told by an old man that seven of his nine wives had dis-
appeared in this way.

In physical appearance there appears to be a well-marked
difference between the Mandingo peoples and the other
tribes. The Susus and the Mencli are more lightly built than
the Timne ; the Limba type is different from either, and they
are perhaps somewhat darker.

Many of the natives in the south appear to be very
capable traders ; in one family, four of whose members
received part of the farming capital for trading purposes,
more than £2,500 w T as banked in seven years from the
surplus profits. In general, however, the native appears to
be unintelligent and singularly lacking in initiative ; it is a
rare occurrence to give an order to a man and find it carried
out promptly and intelligently, or even carried out at all.

The Limba is perhaps rather superior to the other tribes in
this respect.

The Mendi is a better carrier than the Timne , and he
seems to be generally more resolute, though he is at the
same time more light-hearted. On one occasion Timne
carriers, who were called upon to wade a river in Hood, which
was no more than chest deep, gave themselves up for lost,
when the Mendi hammock boys were quite unperturbed.

The cheerfulness of the Mendi, on the other hand, makes
him less prudent.

Freetown itself is inhabited by the descendants of liberated
Africans, who, fifty years ago, spoke hundreds of different
languages, as Koelle has left on record in his Polyglotta
Africana ; to-day Yoruba (Aku) and possibly Ibo
survive.

Of the languages of the Protectorate, Fulfulde (Fula) is
spoken by scattered sections of the tribe, covering over a
large part of the area, who are in most cases sedentary,
sometimes in their own villages, and mainly occupied with
cattle-keeping.

The remaining languages are Soudanese, and fall into two
main groups, prefix and non-prefix tongues. To the former,
which may be called the old group, belong (a) Timne, (b)
Limba (with several dialects), and (c) Bulam (Mampa
Sherbro), Krim, and Kisi, which are closely related.

The non-prefix languages are : (a) Gola, an isolated tongue
on the Liberian border with no known affinities beyond
those existing between all Soudanese languages, and (b) the
Mandingo group, of which the following are included in
British territory : Susu, Yalunka, Koranko, Kono, Yai, Loko,
and Me,ndi, of which the last differs in a somewhat marked
degree from the normal Mandingo type.

Me,ndi is and has for some time been swallowing up its
smaller neighbours, Bulam (Sherbro), Krim, and Yai ; it is
by no means improbable that some of the features of MQndi
are due to the fact that the Mandingo element in the tribe
is far smaller than in the other tribes mentioned above ; this

is borne out by the fact that Mendi has several well-marked
dialects.

On the north-west of Freetown Bulom, of which the
Timne name is Mampa, is being swallowed up by Timne, and
is only found in isolated groups.

It is certain that considerable changes have taken place in
comparatively recent times in the distribution of the tribes ;
for Port Loko is now a Timne area, but from its name it is
clear that it has been in recent times in Loko hands. The
Timne occupation of the Butam shore is also comparatively
recent, if the maps published at the end of the eighteenth
century can be accepted as a guide. Even in 1854 Koelle
says that Timne territory is south of the " Sierra Leone "
river. It must, however, be remembered that the treaty of
cession of the colony proves that the Freetown area was in
Timne bauds in 1788.

As to the conditions previous to this period we have little
or no information save from tradition, which goes to show
that at no very remote era the Protectorate was covered with
virgin forest, of which the remains are found on the Liberian
boundary and between the Timne and Northern Mendi
areas; south of the forest lay the Bulom, but the forest
itself seems to have been mainly uninhabited. One curious
fact, however, possibly not without significance in this
connection, may be quoted. The German word for parrot is
" papagei," the English word " popinjay " is from the same
root, and cognate words are found in Portuguese and other
European languages ; both have been traced to Arabic and
other roots, but without any great certainty. The Timne,
Limba, and Loko word for parrot is pampakei, and it seems
clear that the German and Timne words are genetically
connected. We know that words for pine-apple (ananas),
tomato (tambatis), etc., have been introduced with the
objects themselves ; but there is no reason to suppose that
parrots, which are comparatively rare even in the southern
Timne area, and quite unknown in the northern portions, so
far as my observation goes, were ever introduced in the same

way, still less that they were introduced by Portuguese or
other white men, as must have been the case if the Timne
adopted a European word.

If, however, parrots were introduced into Europe by some-
one who visited the West Coast in the Middle Ages and
brought back some of the birds, the puzzle is to explain why
they should have adopted a name from tribes of which two —
Limba and Loko — have never, so far as we know, been on
the coast, nor on a navigable creek save at Port Loko, and the
third penetrated to the coast in all probability long after the
word reached Europe.

There are other tribes nearer the Gambia which have a
cognate name for parrot, and it may be that it is from them
and not the Sierra Leone tribes that the word is borrowed.
In any case no certain inference can be drawn from the facts.
Tradition states that the Timne came from the east, and
not only have they isolated the Loko from the Mendi, sub-
sequently flowing round them to the west, but the Limba
mass, north and east of the northern Timne, has the appear-
ance of having been pushed on one side by an incursive
people, but the fact that the Baga and other tribes speaking
Timne dialects are in French territory suggests that the
people came from the west ; perhaps only the chief came
from the east.

As regards the old group, Limba is definitely a prefix
language, as the following forms show : —

Singular. Plural. English.

hutiti tatiti tooth

kutai natai foot

te hate fowl

hurak inarak stone

wali mbali slave

but names of animals, with few exceptions, seem to have a
suffix plural : —

Singular. Plural. English.

kanrpa kampan elephant

kosa koseh pis;

The principal prefix is ku, hu (ta, na); fo (ta), fa (nip,
na), w (b), are also found.

Tlie situation as to Timne is perfectly clear. The prefixes
serve to form the plural, and at the same time indicate
whether the noun is in the definite or indefinite form, i.e.,
whether it corresponds to the noun with the definite or with
the indefinite or no article.

As regards Bulom, Krim, and Kisi, the situation is less
clear. There can be no doubt that the languages are closely
allied in vocabulary, as the following specimens show : —

Bui 'nil.

Krim.

Kisi.

English.

rin

ede

yinde

hair

pal

depande

paleh

sun

pah

yipaii

pahge

moon

mwen

m^n

mtmdah

water

kil

boxi

keyo

house

matulun

maicoi

k^iyan

fat

[pie]

wis

visio

meat

kulun

bilih

kulin

goat

can

kucan

kinde

tooth

kamo

melin

breast

kusu

finger

kwQn

lekin

knife

tauh

hotin

eye

ijulam forms the plural in some cases by prefix, e.g.. can,
ncan, tooth; rin, irin, hair; rok, nrok, grandchildren;
and the same is true of Krim, which is obviously a prefix
language in the above list: — tanye, munye, ear; kuca,
nine a, tooth; kusu, in usu,' finger. Even Kono seems to
have the prefix plural in a few forms, e.g., moya, eya, eye.

When, however, we turn to Kisi, the plural is formed by
suffix or change of vowel in the last syllable : — hotin,
hotan, eye; kinde, kindon, tooth; ba, balah, hand;
keyo, kerah. house; bqngo, behgulah, foot.

It seems, however, evident that there is no prefix change
to form the plural ; yet the forms yinde (hair), hotin (eye)

Plate I.

susu weaving. See page 1 2.

SUSPENSION BRIDGE OF creepers; See page 12.

when we compare them with the forms in the other
languages suggest that prefixes are not unknown.

In some cases the Kisi suffix change seems to he clearly a
change of form in the determinative do, kinde, kindo, tooth ;
yomdo, yomde, tree; but in the case of ba, balan, hand;
keyo, keran, house; kamao, kamani, elephant, we have
the addition of 1(a), r(a) or n, which apparently indicates the
plural.

On the whole it seems probable that Kisi, which is isolated
among the Mandingo group, has lost its old prefix methods
and adopted suffix change, in a certain number of cases only,
as a means of indicating the plural.

Articles, or forms of the noun taking the place of articles,
are not a normal feature of Mandingo languages. It
is therefore worthy of note that Mendi, and Lqko, have
suffixes i with, in Mendi at least, different forms for the
plural to indicate the definite and indefinite forms of the
noun.

Kisi appears to use do, o, with a plural ni; Bulam and
Krim have a form de, winch is apparently determinative,
while Limba and Gola use yo, ho; the Limba plural in n is
perhaps connected with the form ni.

Tones play a considerable part in Mendi, Limba, and
Bulam ; and their importance in Mandingo languages may
be regarded as probable. In Timne, on the other hand,
owing, no doubt, largely to the development of prefixes,
which vastly diminish the possibility of homonyms, they
play a very subordinate role.

The small dialectical differences in Timne may point to its
being, in its present form, of late origin, which no doubt
favoured the dropping out of tones.

The mode of life and native products of the tribes, of
whatever group, show singularly little variation over the
whole area. The Yalunka and Koranko are perhaps the
most diversified as regards manufactures, though the
Koranko products on sale in Freetown are confined to a
small area of the Koranko country.

Of important ethnographical features the xylophone (Kor
b a Ian ye,) is confined to the Koranko, the loom (Plate I) to
Susu, Mendi and Limba with few exceptions, pottery mainly
to the Mendi, though this is due principally to the introduction
of European pots, mainly of iron.

The general form of the house is everywhere the same,
save where the rectangular house has penetrated, coming
from Freetown. It is circular with, as a rule, small rooms
outside the main wall, but under the main roof. The thatch
is of grass tied down on poles secured to each other by a
series of circular rings (Plate II) . The substructure of the
walls is of wood, upright poles sunk in the ground with
horizontal pieces to give rigidity. The portion of the house
outside the main wall which is not taken up with the kohko,
or small room, is often fenced with a low wall and forms a
veranda in front and behind, which is sometimes on a level
with the ground, sometimes raised above and approached by
steps.

In the Limba country near Kaballa is found a feature
very unusual in West Africa — the use of stone in the con-
struction of houses (Plate II). At present there are no data
to show whether this was sporadic or derived from some other
area ; possibly the use of sun-dried bricks at Falaba may
have suggested the idea; but it is more probably clue to the
scarcity of suitable material for house-building on the tops
of the hills.

The double gong is characteristic of the Limba.

In this area we also find large mud rice-bins built inside the
house, two or three feet in diameter, and sometimes as much
as seven feet high.

Native suspension bridges (Plate I), in use on the Seli and
other rivers, are perhaps of Koranko origin, though they are
also found in the Timne country to the south of this tribe.

The hammock and sling are in general use among all tribes ;
loads, especially rice, are carried with a pack and head band.

Secret societies flourish, especially in the Mendi and
adjacent Timne areas, but the Susu and Limba have important

Plate IT.

house building at mapori. See page 12.

STONE house (limba) at yakala. See page 1 "_'.

societies. The woman's society, Bundu, is not known to all
the Limba, nor is clitoridectomy practised west of Kaballa ;
but there is nothing to show by which tribe it was introduced
or how it originated in this part of West Africa. According
to a MS. of Schlenker, who was in the Tinine country sixty
years ago, Bundu was learned by the Timne from the Meridi.

Circumcision appears to be universal.

Various dialects of Timne are distinguished but the
differences are small. The northern branch are known as
Sanda Timne ; it was in this area that most of my enquiries
were made.

n.— DEMOGRAPHY.

In order to ascertain the proportions of the sexes at birth
and in mature life, and to obtain information as to the
effect of polygyny on fecundity, the sex ratio of the first-
born, the relative mortality of males and females and other
matters, genealogies were collected giving details of the
families of over two hundred and seventy men, including one
with fifty wives, who was himself the son of a man who had
sixty wives and one hundred children.

Fifty-three daughters in these families had gone to
husbands, but there was no information as to whether they
were monogamous marriages or not. There was, however, a
tendency to omit or overlook their dead children, and the
same was true in a more marked degree of the information
about older generations of my informants' families. These
data are therefore not as a rule included.

In addition to these genealogies a few villages were
completely counted and random samplings were made of
chance assemblages of men at various places. For my
genealogies were mainly derived from sub-chiefs and were apt
to show an undue proportion of polygynous marriages, and
might introduce other errors into the data.

On the whole, however, it was found that the systematic
census could not be carried out with success even with the
support of the paramount chief ; in more than one place the
information vouchsafed in his presence was plainly erroneous
and deliberately falsified. In other cases the paramount chief
refused to give any assistance in the enquiry. On the whole,
therefore, the data collected in this way were in bulk con-
siderably less than those obtained by the genealogical method,
and the reliability was inferior ; the glaringly erroneous data
have, however, been omitted.

On the whole, the two sets of statistics show such close

agreement as regards the sex ratio in the total births that
there can be little doubt of their reliability. As might
perhaps be expected, the mortality, both among males and
females, was higher in the general count than in the
genealogies.

Generally speaking, in the genealogies there were 422
male births to 258 female, a ratio of 100 to 61 ; in the
census 294 to 206, a ratio of 100 to 69. Males surviving
were to females surviving in the ratios of 100 to 55 - 6 and
100 to 64.

Taking the children and grouping together those of the
first wife, whether in polygynous or monogynous families,
and so on, we find, though with very small numbers, a small
drop in the percentage of females from the third wife
onwards, — only 54 per cent.

It is interesting to note that this proportion held good in
the large polygynous family mentioned above, in which thirty
males were borne by the wives numbered seven and upwards
on my list, and only fifteen females. There is, however, some
uncertainty as to the precise order of the wives, as my
informant was a junior member of the family and no senior
member was available, and it is quite possible that some of
the thirty-five unfertile wives should have been included
among the first six.

Generally speaking, however, the data confirm the results
obtained in Nigeria that polygyny favours an excess of male
births ; but having regard to the small numbers and to the
natural excess of male births even in monogynous marriages
— a condition that does not prevail in Nigeria — the result is
less important than might appear at first sight.

In the census it was impossible to establish in every case
which was the first wife ; and similar figures can only be
given therefore under great reservations. So far as they go,
the numbers being still smaller than in the genealogies, there
is hardly any difference between the numbers of the two
sexes born by wives numbered from four upwards ; but the
total number of children was less than fifty.

If we now group the children by patrilineal families instead
of by the numerical order of their mothers, we find in the
genealogies no marked law in the proportion of females
which is 60, 62, 53, 74, 79, 43, in ascending order of families
according to the number of wives per family up to six.

In the census the proportion of females is 75, 45, 50, 109,
75, 63. Here again, therefore, there is no evidence of the
operation of any law.

Taking now the sex ratio of the first-born, for which the
genealogies alone are available, we find the proportion of
females is for the wives in order 39, 60, 40, 115, 0, 200 (or,
for the last three, 66) ; and by families, 43, 44, 54, 60, 55, 21
(for six and all above). Here again there is no evidence of
law,but the generalratio, 46 females to 100 males, is markedly
different from the ratio for all births ; the difference is less
marked if we add the families of the daughters mentioned
above (p. 14), in which the ratio was 76 per cent. The first
ratio by wives then becomes 47, and by families 54.

As regards sterility, it is natural that in the case of men
with one wife a considerable proportion should be recently
married and therefore appear, unjustly, among the sterile.
Out of a total of 191 monogamous marriages, including those
of daughters, 27 were unfertile, nearly one-seventh. As,
however, 36 out of 193 non-monogynous marriages were
sterile, a proportion of three-sixteenths, it is not certain that
one-seventh is too high a ratio. It must of course be recog-
nised that the causes that made three out of five wives sterile
in one case are very possibly not the same as those which
made a monogamous wife sterile ; in the case of one large
family in which, in the first generation, one man had 100
children, and one of his sons had 67 by 50 wives, no less than
thirty-five of these wives had no children, and if data were
available as to his father the proportion would probably be
equally great.

In a certain number of polygynous marriages the most
recent wife might have been married within the year and
therefore figure as sterile. But obviously this proportion, if

we take the case of a man with two wives, will probably not
be more than one-half what it is in monogynous marriages,
one-third in the case of the man with three wives and so on.
On the whole, therefore, allowing for the fact that a certain
proportion of the women are naturally sterile, it is clear that
the proportion of sterility among polygynons wives is enor-
mously in excess of what it is in the monogynons family.

Turning now to the number of children per wife, we find
that, even excluding sterile marriages, there is a progressive
diminution as the number of wives increases. The married
life of the second and later wives has ex hypothesi been
shorter than that of the first wives ; but this fact hardly seems
to explain entirely the diminution in fertility, which descends
from 2'7 for the first wife to 1*8 for two, 16 for three, and
1*4 for four to six.

No stress can, however, be laid upon these data, in view of
the small numbers involved, and especially in view of the fact
that the census figures do not confirm them, the numbers
being 2 - 3, 2'5, 2'4, 3*9 (mainly owing to two families, one of
27, one of 17), 3, and 26.

It has, however, been noted above that the census figures
were demonstrably unreliable in some cases, and it is by no
means improbable that while some unduly diminished the
numbers of their children, others unduly magnified them.

It seems clear from the census that males are slightly in
excess of females. The results show 360 living males of all
ages and 348 females, exclusive of casual lodgers in a house
with only remote relationship to the head, or, at any rate,
no direct relationship of descent. These include a certain
number of women who have lost their husbands, and if they
are included they would be nearly, if not quite, counterbalanced
by the males, more especially younger brothers, who had lost
their fathers and were without homes of their own. The ao-e
of marriage being much lower for the woman, the number of
females living under corresponding circumstances is also
much lower.

On the whole the proportion of twin births appears to be

exceedingly low. Twins are not regarded as unlucky, and
there is no reason to suppose that any twin births were
concealed. The fact that in many cases special names are
given to twins, such as Sento and Sino, and that the child
next after twins is often called 'Bese (to be distinguished
from another name similarly spelt but with different tone —
'Bese), makes it comparatively easy to detect the presence
of twins, even if the actual information is erroneous or
defective.

Excluding the descendants of Seni Kabia of Magbile, only
six or seven cases of twin births are recorded in the
genealogy, a far lower proportion than appeared to prevail in
Nigeria, where twins are, or were, systematically exposed by
many tribes, and, prima facie, the twin-bearing stock
correspondingly depleted.

In the family of Seni Kabia, on the other hand, twins
were far more numerous, though not perhaps exceptionally
so in comparison with the normal European stock.

Seni Kabia was himself a twin ; among his children were
two pairs of twins ; and one of his children, not himself a
twin, had also two pairs, as to whom no further information
was obtained.

Fode Kabia, son of Seni Kabia, had by his first wife three
sets of twins among his twelve children, all but one of the
twins being males. One of these twins was himself the
father of twins, born prematurely. One other son of Fode
was also the father of twins. There were in all ten pairs
among 250 names recorded in the genealogies of the
descendants of Seni Kabia ; only six or seven were recorded,
on the other hand, among the 750 names in the remainder
of the genealogies.

In Tables I and III square brackets show the number of
dead wives, round brackets the number of unfertile wives.

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■SJT* ^9

■ajTAv q^Q

1 ■»

•8jiay q^,

1— 1

1 *

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«Q

1-1

1 °°

•8JU4. pug

i—i

f— i

■<#

l-H

, -

•aim (jsx

CO
CN

i— i

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1— (

■"# CO

09
CM

•siiay qig

■8JIM i{]<j

1 -

•8JTM. q^

1 «

•9JIAV pjg

i—i

1 2

•aiu&..pug

i— I

•n

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JC~

.-i

•9Aip3 S8[Bp\[

00
lO

00
CM

00 CN 00

r— 1

oa
i— i

28 §

2g§

§«£

5?iSE

31 -* rH riT 1 ! — 1 £?

co "^ ^

-* ~ CO

ID
HP

Six

Nine*

Ten

c 2

Table II.
Wives and Childeen (Genealogies).

The wives are given in each case in the order in which they were married.

Plate J II.

Table III.

Wives and Children (by Families). Sex Eatio of
First-born, etc.

Number

wives.

Children.

Number

per
marriage.

First-
born
male.

First-
born

female.

Males.

Females.

188 \
(38) J

296

174

2-5

121

First wife.

50 \
(12) J

1-8

Second wife.

29 I
(8) /

1-6

18-5*

7'5*

Third wife.

14 \
(7) J

1-3

6-5*

7 '5*

Fourth wife.

o 6 )}

1-6

Fifth wife.

(?)}

1-5

Sixth wife.

290
(67)

432

258

185

* Twins.
In this table round brackets show the number of unfertile wives.

J-

o <
o

road

4 O'-
The above is the ground plan of a typical village in the
Sanda country. The houses were all small, but, almost
without exception, had verandas.

The occupants were as follows : —

1. KQmbo, father's brother's son of No. 4.

2. 10. Ke,nani, father's brother of No. 4.

3. Drisa, father's father's son's son of No. 4.

4. Pa Woso, head man of the village.

5. Karefala, father's father's son's son.

6. Bokari I, sister's son to No. 4.

7. Bainya, brother of 12 and father's father's son of 4.

8. Basi, „ „ „ „

9. Bankara, „ „ „ „

11. Moino, „ „ „ „

12. Bokari II, brother of 7, „ „ „ „

13. Held in trust by Pa Woso for the prospective second

husband, Bonka, of the late owner's widow ; she
was "Woso's brother's daughter, and lived with Bokari
in No. 12 ; [this thirteenth house was untenanted.]

One house was building,
houses were : —

The other inmates of these

Table IV.

Alive. Dead.

Alive.

Dead.

Three of K's father's wives.
Also Baki (son).

(1)

(2)

2.(1)

(2)
(3)

1 :h

1 2 1

1 3

2 2 1

Also brother's wife, childless, in No

5
1

10.

3.(1)

(2)
4.(1)

(2)
(3)

3
1
1
(marrie

Also B

2
d in preced

. " "
asi (son).

2
3

1
ing year).
n

1
1
2

(1)

(2)

5. (1)

1
2

—

(2)

(married preceding year).
Also one brother.

(1)
6. (1) (a widow)

Also his mother.

7.(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

8.(1)

(2)

2
(recent

1 1
ly married and pregnai

Also Morlai (son), one wife, no childien.

9.(1)

—

— .

. — ■

—

(2) (dead)

(3) „

Also m

other and a

2
mall brothe

—

11.(1)

— 1

—

12. (1)

3 1

—

(2)
(3)

1 l
Also a widow, Binki,

in this hous

Totals 15 men, 27
(+ 2 dead)

24 | 13 21 16

and two mothers, two brothers, one
brother's wife, and four widows.

From the close relationship of all the men of the village,
it might be imagined that it was founded by Pa Woso's
grandfather, but this did not appear to be the case, for it
was said to be the oldest in the district. Possibly the
explanation lies in part in the fact that four of the men had
died in the previous months, and four more were gone away
to work. This accounts also to some extent for the large
proportion of wives — nearly two per adult male exclusive of
the widows.

III. -PARAMOUNT CHIEF.

The kande or paramount chief seems to be a comparatively
recent figure in many areas; some, it is true, trace their
power back to Bai Farama (or Farama Tami), who lived
perhaps four hundred years ago ; but in many cases the
chieftainship seems to go back only a few generations, and
the original chief is said to have gained his position by his
wealth ; for in olden days it appears to have been the duty
of a paramount chief to compose differences by liberal
presents to both sides. Where two tribes were fighting, a
chief might spend £15 to £20 and send money to both
parties. If they agreed to stop hostilities, an oath was
taken and a cow, given by the chief, was sacrificed. This
was divided into three parts, one for each of the contending
parties and one for the chief.

In other cases, especially where there are now two
"families " {i.e., a bun a, clans) which share the succession to
the chieftainship, there is a tradition that the second family
gained its position owing to assistance given in war to the
original family. The rule of succession is, of course, not in
the direct male line where there are two or more houses,
which sometimes represent, not original clans, but des-
cendants of the same male ancestor; the term for '"house" in
this case is kunte. In some cases at least the two-clan rule
is traced back to the fact that a sister of the original chief or
one of his successors was the mother of a man elected to the
chieftainship. Under the rule of exogamy this necessarily
involves a change of clan.

It is, however, clear that the simple dying out of the
original family or the youth of its eldest male members when
the time came for them to succeed, is not an adequate

explanation of succession through the female line ; for in
some cases there is a record of a chief's daughter helping him
and being the overseer of his house. This suggests that she
probably attained some authority and was able to influence
the election.

In some cases the two houses are actually of different
tribes ; at Kamalu there is a Loko and a Timne line, though
it must be remembered that, owing to the suzerainty claimed
by Brama Sanda, Kamalu was never recognised as a full
chieftaincy.

The original chiefs were by no means necessarily of the
same blood as the people whom they governed. It is, indeed,
not quite clear how far the country was populated, nor how
far the travellers from the east brought their own people
with them ; but tradition makes it clear that Koranko,
Mandingo, Loko, and Limba houses are now among the
Timne chiefs.

The paramount chief is supreme in his own district, and
can in theory decide law cases as he chooses ; if, however,
his decisions are glaringly opposed to recognised law, the
aggrieved suitor has, at least in theory, the power to go to
another chief, of repute as a judge, and, after paying a fee,
state his case to him ; the chief would then send to the chief
who tried the case originally, and request him to remit it
to him for re-trial ; this, of course, in order to secure the
presence of the other party and the witnesses. It appears
to be held that a chief cannot, without loss of reputation,
refuse to allow a fellow-chief to review his decisions ; but
whether a suitor would gain anything in the long run by
appealing against his chief's law is quite another matter.

His authority over his sub-chiefs appears to be almost
absolute.

The customs with regard to the election, crowning, burial,
etc., of the chief differ widely from place to place, and no
generalised account of the matter can be given. Many of
these customs are regarded as secret, and it was impossible to
check the information, which appeared to be given in good

faith and with the tacit consent of the chief ; in more than
one case, in fact, the chief's son himself gave me the facts,
evidently on his father's behalf.

The chiefs are subject to many ritual prohibitions over and
above those incumbent on the mass of the people (see p. 69) ;
and it is a matter of some interest to discover how these
arose. A natural idea would be that those chiefs who came
from other tribes brought with them their tribal customs
and retained them unchanged ; but of this there does not
seem to be any evidence ; on the contrary, Koranko chiefs
in their own country are singularly unhampered by ritual
restrictions. It appears far more probable that the prohibi-
tions were developed, at least in part, by the contact between
a foreign chief and an indigenous people, precisely as the
contact between two races has a tendency to cause the
development of secret societies.

In the Sanda country, corresponding to the subordinate
position of the chiefs, the mas am and the customs generally
are of minor importance. At Kanialu the choice of a new
chief, always from the other house, i.e., from the alternative
one to that of the last chief, appears to rest with the men of
sixty or over. A man of the second house appears to act as
adviser to a chief of the first house. The chief is known as
Bai Samura.

When the time comes for crowning, the chosen man is shut
up in the kanta for six days or more ; his wife cooks for
him, and the important men may also see him.

The house is " opened " for the chief to come out by the
or ok, or resent, who is often his sister's son. The chief is
taken to the grass field and they name his clan, and ask the
other clansmen if they are glad ; thereupon they put con-
tributions in a calabash, and a mo, rim an puts a white cloth
on the chief's head and takes the money given. The end of
this cloth must hang down to the chief's waist from the back
of his head ; for a sub-chief it is on the right side.

When he sends for a town to work for him, they work for
one day ; four days later another town comes, and so on.

In the remainder of the Timne area we find the para-
mount chiefs proper, who are divided into Poro and Kagbenle
chiefs (see p. 143). All, or nearly all, are subject to special
ritual prohibitions, the origin of which is obscure. Although
tradition says that the chiefs came from the east, and some, at
least, were Korankos, ritual prohibitions of this kind were
not found among the Koranko chiefs visited.

In some chiefdoms there is a man who represents the
" chiefship kri.fi."

At Mamaka he is called Sanko (Plate IV) ; Sanko and the
chief, Satimaka, must be in separate houses ; like the chief, he
may not go where bundu implements are kept, nor where
tli ere is a new-born child. It is significant that at the chief's
death his Sanko retires and is replaced by another man after
offering a sacrifice.

Sanko wears a helmet of leather surmounted by a tuft ; the
face is of brass and there is a brass plate behind ; strips of
leopard skin are attached to the base, and over the skin is
fibre that reaches to the waist. He has fibre ruffles round
his wrists and net anklets with fibre tops. Four sticks tied
together (bonkQloma) are in his hand ; they are the chief's
staff ; in point of fact the staff actually used by the chief is
quite different, long and forked at the top.

The chiefship mask of Magbile is known as arqn arabai;
like Sanko the wearer cannot come out when the chief is
dead ; the mask is kept in the chief's house. The dress is
formed of skins, and he has palm-fibre trousers.

When he goes out to walk through the land he carries a
broom and whips to flog people who do not come out when
he dances. He can judge cases and pay the money received
to the chief.

Plate IV.

IV.— RELIGION.

Although the coming of Mohammedanism doubtless modi-
fied profoundly in some directions the traditional belief and
customs of the natives, especially in the direction of decad-
ence, without any corresponding influx of new ideas or rites
to take the place of those that fell into desuetude, it does
not seem difficult to descry the main features of the pre-
Mohammedan religion. This did not differ very widely from
what is found, with larger or smaller variations, in many
other parts of the negro area.

(1) The main deity, known as Kuru, or Kurumasaba,
appears to have been a sky god ; he occasionally receives
sacrifices, and this is possibly a Mohammedan innovation, for
in the prayers that are the main feature of the satka (see
p. 52) Kurumasaba is clearly regarded as the equivalent
of Alia. Though Alia is doubtless the deity invoked and
approached in the mosque, where the moriman's influence
is supreme, it is Kurumasaba who is addressed, even by the
good Mussulman, as soon as the literary influence is left
behind.

The mere fact that the satka comprehends so many and
so diverse elements is a proof, if any were needed, that the
religious life has been little influenced by Mohammedanism ;
but the name satka is clearly due to its influence, and may
have been extended to cover many rites not originally
embraced under one name or regarded as identical in their
nature ; we need not, however, suppose that Kurumasaba
was originally called upon in all these diverse ceremonies.

In addition to Kurumasaba, we find at least one, and,
perhaps, more than one, shadowy figure that suggests a
heathen pantheon in former days. It was formerly the

custom, and the practice still survives sporadically, to weep
for Kumba at the beginning of the farming season.

A long shed was made near the town and hoed with hooked
sticks instead of iron hoes ; then rice was planted in the
ground thus hoed. All the little children in the town went
out repeating, " We cry for Kumba ; they are planting his
rice to-day."

Some of the people in the town danced and sang : " Abok
Kumban o, abok Kumban o" — "We cry for Kumba, 0,
we cry for Kumba." Xo one did any other work on this day.

The rice was left uncut, for it was Kumba's ; he was said
to be a very bad man w r ho spoiled all the rice in the world,
and they had to plant his rice, they believed, when they
began farming.

This account of a custom now almost forgotten suggests
that Kumba was a vegetation god of the type of Adonis ;
nothing could, in that case, be more accurate than the state-
ment that he owns all the rice in the world ; and when the
custom began to fall into desuetude, the belief might well
take the form that Kumba had to be propitiated in order
that he might not spoil the rice, his rites being regarded as
on all fours with those that are directed towards preserving
the rice from the krifi and animals.

In a neiohbourincr town, though of another tribe, Kumba
was mentioned in another connection ; when no rain fell, all
people who had farms went out singing, "We Kumba." The
meaning of this was unknown, nor was anyone able to inform
me who Kumba was, though it was suggested that he was a
witch.

The rice gardens in this town, which belongs to the Loko
tribe, were made in the same way as in the Sanda (Timne)
country, and the additional information was vouchsafed that
the hooked sticks used as hoes were hung in the roof of the
long hut.

The custom appears to be known asTubahga; it was
associated in their minds with their " old people who died,"
for they interfered with the farming; the hoes they used

were the hooks hung in the roof, and it was believed that
they would use them again in cultivating the rice sown for
them under the long roof.

It was added that rice had to be offered on the graves, for
otherwise dead men would catch the hoes, and there would
be no good rice. The rice sown in the huts was left uncut ;
it was masom.

These accounts, perhaps, hardly add to the probability that
Kumba was a vegetation deity, though it is true that powers
over rain are ascribed to these beings in European folk-lore,
and it is a Loko belief, apparently, that Kumba withholds
the rain, or that an appeal to him will cause rain to fall.

It might be argued that the rice gardens were connected
with the cult of ancestors when the Kumba belief fell into
the background ; but it might equally well be argued that
the belief in Kumba's connection with rice was secondary.
This explanation seems more probable in view of the fact
that farther south in the Tinme country Kumban was not
mentioned in connection with the custom, which was called
Atobankere. Two small huts were built with a path
between, and rice was sown in this and left to fall. It was
universal some fifty years ago, but is now obsolete.

(2) Below the main deity or deities come, as might be
expected, a mass of minor spirits.

(a) Some, and these form by far the majority, are name-
less and known only by the generic term krifi,
which in some tribes are not unnaturally equated
by the learned with the Arab jin, and among the
Susu are actually known by the name yina.

(V) Others have definite names of their own, though
apparently localised in more than one place, and
therefore far from being single individuals.

The nameless krifi are vaguely divided into good and bad ;
sacrifices are offered to the former, especially in connection
with farming, sometimes in association with Kurumasaba
and the ancestors ; these good krifi are often supposed to

live near the town, whereas the bad krifi live in the middle
of the grass field or in the hush. But it happened to me
more than once that some of my staff described a krifi whom
they had seen in the neighbourhood of the town (actually a
somewhat dwarfish native of the town), and obviously stood
in tenor of him.

Some physical malformation is often attributed to the bad'
krifi : their fingers are bent and they are wry-necked ; but
it is dangerous for anyone to laugh at them, for the krifi
kills the disrespectful onlooker. Other krifi are "born"
with hands against their heads. Krifi are both male and
female, and according to one informant men see the female
krifi, women the male krifi ; they are also supposed to be
succ.ubi and incubi.

Bad krifi carry off the children to the bush; they are
recovered by " swearing " on an oath medicine (see p. 80) ;
this alarms the krifi, and the children come back; but they
become crazy if they talk about their experiences.

Krifi akant (bush krifi) are not the same as those that
spoil the rice ; they live in ant-hills, which have insects
inside. Abempa must be performed for them or they will
cause big sores, or a man will wound himself in the farm.
As they are bush krifi, cassava that is planted in the bush is
put near them. This kind of krifi causes erotic dreams,
and when it is really angry it punishes a man by bringing
his real sister, with whom he commits incest in the night
unknowingly. If a woman is followed by a krifi, she offers
cassava, bread, a stone and an ant-heap. The krifi is told
to look after the cassava till it grows, as it is his ; if he does
not do so, thieves may come.

For the b^mpa rice must be provided and rubbish cleared
away. After splitting a kola nut the man says : " Lout a,
lonta" (as people do to the chief before discussing a palaver
in his bare). Then they put the kola together again,
saying : " I come to you ; I have brought you food." "When
the kola is thrown, if the sections lie face up, the man says :
•' "VVe beg, we beg," and eats it on the ground. A fowl is

then killed by cutting its throat on the top of the ant-hill,
and rice cooked. Water is brought by two people and the
rice and fowl are divided between the krifi and the man
who offers the b qui pa. He says : " This is the rice ; I come
to beg you that when I walk I may not wound myself."

One krifi is specially appropriated to women; it is called
asar (stone), and is said to bring children. For the be, in pa a
small cup is used with bread inside and white shirting round
it, and is offered by a woman who has not conceived for a
whole twelvemonth. When a child is born, two white
fowls are offered and sickness is thus averted.

Girls who go fishing have a krifi ; thev kill a smooth
lizard (k ok on to) and give it to the krifi, which is
represented by a white stone ; then all eat, or they will
catch no fish.

In Like manner boys who set traps cook and offer to the
trap itself the first handful of food on a cassava leaf ; the
trap is beaten with two sticks to make it catch game, for
otherwise it will not kill.

This krifi differs from all others in being a manufactured
object, thus coming near many of the personal tutelary
deities of Nigeria. The detail as to the beating of the trap
is a singular one and recalls the many stories current in
literature about the " fetish " that is beaten or thrown away
if it does not profit the owner. In the present case the
information was volunteered, not given in answer to a
question. It is not, however, clear that the beating is ever
repeated ; and clearly a beating when the trap is first made
is not precisely on all fours with a beating administered
because it has failed to catch game.

There is of course nothing impossible or inherently absurd
in the idea of chastising gods ; but in the present case there
is at least a possibility that the original purpose of the rite
was not chastisement.

Whatever may be the case with the bad krifi, it seems
probable that the good krifi are confused with, if they did
not originate in, the " old dead people." After talking about

krifi one informant went on to deal with the cult of
ancestors and said that when a man died, they took a stone
to represent him (in the boromasar) and "worshipped"
him in this form. They were told to do this by the
morinian, who talks to the krifi and is commonly supposed
to be able, after shutting himself up for seven days and
living on rice-bread, to tell people all about heaven and hell.

Among the good krifi are the tambara ant^f, who
" have " the country ; all towns collect fowls and rice and all
head men go to this abempa. These krifi live in every big
tree on the roads, never in the towns.

The term krifi is, however, used in a still wider sense.
In addition to tutelary spirits (possibly ancestral) associated
with towns, and others of uncertain nature connected with
certain chiefs (see p. 28), all secret societies have associated
with them a krifi (actually represented by a human being-
like some of those just mentioned) which holds the same
position, so far as can be seen, as the masked figures in
Nigerian societies ; that is to say, for the uninitiated,
especially the women, there is something mysterious and
perhaps awful about such a being, who may perhaps be
regarded as having been originally a kind of tutelary deity
of the society ; on the other hand, it is also possible that, the
aim of the societies being, in some cases, to educate or
to exercise judicial functions, the krifi was originally a
mere bugbear.

Among the krifi that possess personal names must be
mentioned Aronso, the hunter krifi ; it carries a gun and
kills people and cows, using stolen powder ; its shouts can be
heard but the krifi itself is said to be invisible, according to
one account. It has clothes of iron, which rattle at night ; a
bag containing hammers and pieces of iron, a matchet, keys
and traps for birds and fish are also among the properties
carried.

Aronso is said to shoot at animals and suck their blood
and fat, so that they are tasteless when men try to eat them.
In like manner when an animal is offered to a krifi, its

acceptance is shown by its falling dead and people know the
krifi has taken it ; the krifi takes the ankolo (real sheep)
and leaves the amfos (empty husk).

Another account of Aronson says that he is a thief that
steals and brings to his master ; he has a hag with a rope,
" chisel," and purse (see Part III, p. 55) ; if he is caught
stealing fish and threatened, he offers the contents of his bag ;
the man who chooses the rope always has cows; the man who
chooses the " chisel " digs bush yams ; and the man who
chooses the purse is always rich. If a man grabs the whole
bag, the krifi goes at night with his gun, making a
whistling sound, and forces the man to disgorge.

The krifi that make men rich must be paid, or they burn
a man's house ; but if the man "begs " them, he will be even
richer than before. The man himself must not eat of the
sheep that he sacrifices or he will die ; other men may eat of
it. Some men kill the sheep under a big tree, putting a
stone down to represent the krifi; this is not an ordinary
stone but one chosen by a " four-eyed " man, who sees the
krifi ; it lives in the stone.

A krifi of this sort, that lives under a tree, will be
worried if a man takes moss from the tree and will make
the man's house leaky by removing the thatch, stalk by
stalk.

According to another account, in the esoteric view the
krifi does not live in the stone but is the stone. If this is
correct, it is in curious contradiction to the accounts given
me in Nigeria, where the common man says that the stone is
the demi-god, while the priest says the stone represents him.

Another krifi is known as (Ain)Yaro ; he lives in the
water and can be seen by a man with good eyes ; he makes a
bargain and agrees to make a man rich in return for a cow
or a sheep ; if the bargain is not kept, he kills the man.
Sometimes, if the man has no cow or sheep, the krifi sets
the town on fire and reckons that as his reward ; some men
say to him : " Burn only my house." Yaro gives his son or
daughter to a man, who must follow their advice ; if the

d 2

man gets another child, the first one, which sits and talks
like a human being, but can be seen only by a " four-eyed "
person, will go away ; on no account should a man take a
child from a second krifi or the first krifi will kill him.

Yaro is said to have a body covered with shining scales,
which are sometimes picked up ; on examination these scales
turned out to be flakes of mica.

Another krifi, whose name is generic rather than
individual, is Asipromantr (water leopard) ; he kills people
indiscriminately, and not only those who. see him. If he
lives in a deep pool, he catches those who fall in.

Kumpamatir is also said to be a krifi that lives near
water, though in point of fact he resembles far more the
krifi of a society and conies out when the rice is growing to
drive away witches who take the form of birds and animals
in order to steal the rice. Kumpamatir is said to be
called by beating sticks together. He parades the town and
utters a peculiar groan or growl like that of a satisfied
animal. A witch is said to fall sick and moan in the same
way ; blood also issues from his nose (hence perhaps the
name Kumpamatir). Kesmatir (catch the blood) is a
name used by the Kagbenle when they come out on account
of the rites.

Although by the native it is reckoned among the wanka
(see p. 60), the ate, ttQ t (Plate IX) is really a woman's krifi,
put up in order to procure children ; but as it descends to her
children and a woman " joins " it like a secret society, the
fact that the krifi is regarded as the enemy of thieves, like
the wanka, may well be neglected in classifying the atgtto, t.

One informant told me that her mother had no children
and was told by the diviner to "join the wanka." She bore
a daughter, and the woman who had initiated her said the
child must bear her name.

When the child grew up and married, her husband put up
the hut for the atQttot; and the woman put in the stones
which represent the krifi, whose name was Bandu.

In the hut were kept four stones to represent Bandu, and

■ 37

sixteen a tun k a shells as ambai, kings of the wanka, who
serve as messengers. All these were in a basin covered with
cloth. Over the door were two fans as a satka to keep evil
from the " medicine " ; outside was a pole with fans, a satka
that money might come.

The " kings " are said to decide cases, i.e., catch thieves ;
when the owner puts rice mixed with palm oil on the stones,
she says : " Eat, call for money."

If a man enters the hut, the wanka will follow him;
whatever he does will fail and disgrace him.

This wanka helps to bring rice, and the owner of an
atqttQt begins to eat new rice after sacrificing ; this is done
in March for six years, after that for twelve years new rice
can be eaten at once ; then for six years the rites are
performed in March ; and so on, the time being reckoned by
the farms.

According to another account a girl joins the anfam
nate,t atot (people of the small house) before her marriage,
and has medicines rubbed on her body. In order to
conceive, a woman offers a fowl: "My good krifi, I have
come to you to-day, I come and ask you to-day to get me
children ; I give you this fowl for food." The fowl is killed,
cooked with rice and left in the ate, t tot for a short time ;
then the sacrificer eats and gives to other members.

In one atgttQt that I examined I found two tortoise
shells, two small brooms, a mat, a stick, two whisky bottles,
and a box containing one basket and a few stones and
cowries in it.

Another had feathers of the plantain eater ; sacrifice
(? satka) was offered to them ; they seem, therefore, to
represent the krifi.

Leopard. — When a hunter kills a leopard, a strip of cloth
is tied round his waist to show that he is a prisoner ; he has
killed the king's cat, which is masam. When he reaches the
town he is tied with a strip of country cloth to a post of the
house.

Grass is tied round the leopard's head and the hunter's

face : young boys cut whips, and in each town that they
pass through on their way to the chief there is a
struggle for the body of the leopard; if the bearers are
driven off, the winners take possession and carry in their

turn.

When they get in, the chief rewards them ; they say,
"We have brought the king's meat." Then the boys run
round the town with whips. The hunter is released and
looses the grass from the leopard's head; when the body is
cut up, there is a fight for the meat, which is not shared out
in the ordinary way.

In some places, when a leopard is killed, all the people m
the town beat themselves with banana leaves, because the
leopard is a warrior. It is said that formerly when a warrior
died there was swordplay at the funeral.

The head and skin of the leopard go to the chief.
A paramount chief is called " leopard," and a leopard is
one of the totems of the Bangura, Sise, and Kuruma clans.

Hunters' Traps.— A hunter who wishes to make a trap
prepares by getting akent and piassava and puts them on
the rubbish heap for a night ; in the morning he breaks
cassava and okro leaves and puts with them ground nut
plants, alligator pepper, chewed spices and camwood, saying
" When I set a trap, let it kill many animals."

Okro and cassava are put in a big pot, the piassava coiled
in it and water poured on and brought to the boil The
hunter must not sit down but walk round the fire so that the
animals may be afoot when he sets his net.

Then the piassava is put on the rubbish heap again and
sticks a finger thick prepared: finally the piassava is

twisted. ,

Any animal caught with the trap is skinned on the rubbish
heap and the water used to wash it is thrown there with the
blood ; " we put the rope here, we come and give you a

present."

Susu.-The name by which the krifi are known is yina ;
bad yina live in the big cotton trees, good yina are under

Plate A'

KORANKO IMAGE. See page 39.

MASKERS AT MAK A: ARON ATOMA: NK.MAXKKKA. See paffe 148.

stones ; they receive a sacrifice of rice bread and kola ; every
five years in October a sheep is offered. The good yina give
children, rice, etc.

A yin comes with a strong wind and can knock a man
down. Only certain people can see them ; a man who sees a
bad yin goes mad or falls sick : they walk in the big bush at
midday. They can paralyse a man or make him dumb ; a
woman who dreams of bad yina becomes sterile ; a yin sets
fire to a house sometimes.

To keep away the bad yina, the Koran is washed and the
water poured on sand, which is scattered round the town.

A child born with teeth is a yin ; it is carried to the river
and put in; if it is a yin, it goes down the river in about
half an hour ; if not, it is a human child, which is buried in
the river if it dies. A child with a long head is also a yin.

Koranko. — Carved stone images (Plate V) or heads are not
uncommon in tins area ; and they seem to be regarded with
veneration. At Yarawaya is a carved female head with
closed eyes, standing perhaps some six inches high.

It is said that twins have spirits behind them and there-
fore they may not be with people who are reaping or thresh-
ing rice. One bunch should be cut and put on the road
leading to the town : the twin takes this and says : " I have
taken ours ; those who are behind me don't take from the
farm " ; then the crop is safe.

Witches appear to be less feared in the farm than malicious
spirits. Three balls of rice bread are made after reaping ;
one is put where the rice will be heaped, one on the road to
the town, and one on a heap of sand ; these are for the
krifi. Straw and pepper are burnt on the road on the day
on which they thresh the rice.

Yalunka.— The word used for krifi is n'inena.

Loko. — The word for krifi is ns;ofo.

Limba. — There are various names for God — Kanu (Safroko
Limba), Masala ( Sella), Masaranka (Tohko) ; but no informa-
tion was obtained to show the precise position of this deity.
Ninety-five per cent, of Limbas are said to be pagan, and it

is significant that the different names mentioned above are in
use.

Various wali are known. Sokoso shoots people behind
the shoulder, like Aronson, and to cure the resulting craw-
craw a leech must take the shot out. TintryomQ is very long,
with a head like a duck and bells at the end of its tail ; its
scales are mica. Either this wali catches a man, or the
man catches him, according to which has the better eyes ; and
its captor becomes rich.

Stones are kept in boxes and people cook for them ; they
say they take them that they may get good crops. When-
ever they see a nice-looking stone, they take it. None of
these stones were shown to me ; but if the account is correct,
we have here a practice not very remote from that which is
commonly called fetishism.

One way of procuring rain is to throw water on a wali.

Only witches can appear as ghosts ; if others appear it is
" only a dream " ; they come to ask for sacrifice. They live in
kat'iQ, which must be in the ground, for the bodies are put
there.

Plate VI.

SACRIFICE (MAT) FOE HEALTH.

SACRIFICE FOE GOOD SLEEP.

V.— CULT OF THE DEAD

In dealing with the subject of the krifi (p. 33) it was
mentioned that there was no clear line of demarcation
between the non-human and the human spirit. It is quite
possible that there has been a certain amount of transference
from one category to another ; thus, we have seen that the
tambara antQf (p. 34) live in big trees ; at Makuta a heap
of stones under a cotton tree was known as masar ma
ambaki (the stones of the old people), and sacrifices were
offered there. This is allied to the cult of ancestors by
the name ambaki, and we may suspect genetic relations.
Possibly as the site of the town has been changed, a new
boromasar was founded, so that two existed, one old, the
other new, until the nature of the old one was forgotten.

The ritual of ancestor-worship differs slightly in various
places, but the variations are unimportant. A small hut is
to be seen near the outskirts of most villages, in which are
collected a number of stones and occasionally other objects ;
these stones represent the dead people of the village, and one
is added at each death (of an " old man " ). In some cases
men and women are represented in the boromasar, in others
the women have their own place ; commonly, however, it is
said that a woman has no town, only a country ; for where
she marries, there is her home.

In sacrificing to these ancestors, which is clone about
hoeing time, it is usual in some places to announce on the
eve of the sacrifice, " We will give you rice in the morning ; "
the cooking is done in the open space about 7.0 a.m., and the
head man takes a handful from each pot or basin and puts
on the stones. This is the only regular sacrifice, but a
diviner may order one at another time.

Elsewhere a sheep is sacrificed by a moriman; all gather
and lay their hands on it ; the sheep is cooked for all together
and not shared out, but eaten from one common pot with rice
and palm oil ; rice, palm oil, and the liver are offered on the
stones. Both men and women take part in the meal.

Fur the worship of parents the ritual is equally simple ;
stones represent the dead, and an old man is called to bgrnpa
with fowl and rice. <: I want you to give my father food
from that stone ; he gets food from that stone ; so that we
may live well."

It is also possible to call old people together, who touch
the bread and pray for long life for the sacrifice!" ; some of
the bread is given to the children ; the portion offered is put
in the middle of the yard, not on the grave, which is usually
on the outskirts of the town, and frecpuently marked with a
stone.

When a fowl as well as rice is to be offered, an old man
goes 10 the grave and is told that the son wishes to sacrifice,
and that if the fowl eats, it is a sign that the ancestor will
accept it. The fowl's throat is cut, and the wife cooks rice
and fowl ; a cup has been placed on the grave and this is
filled with rice ; a portion of fowl is also given ; the old
man eats with the sou ; he may not receive any payment : it
is masam ; at most he may get a head of tobacco. He talks
to the dead ancestor and the latter then asks blessings for the
saerificer.

In Mohammedan areas the sacrifice is on a Friday ; and
sons and daughters take it in turns to provide and cook, but
it is always the eldest son who offers. It is obligatory on
the children to attend. The usual date for the sacrifice is
September or October ; in March a sacrifice may be offered
to a brother or sister.

A mother hands on her stone to her eldest daughter, who
takes it to her husband's house ; her brother is informed and
gives a fowl to bginpa. Other daughters visit the eldest
daughter at the time of sacrifice ; and at the death of the
eldest the second daughter takes her place. The second

i'l.ATE VII.

:'f

<»• m\ *oi

SACRIFICE IX BROKEN CALABASH FOE " BAD DEAD." See pages 43, 56.

SACRIFICE AT ENTRANCE TO FARM. Sec page

daughter may, however, get a stone of her own ; in that case
fowls and rice must be offered to both stones, and a state-
ment made to the ancestor. Alternatively the second
daughter may get the krifi of her father' s mother, for all
married women have one of some sort. There is some reason
to suppose that the senior in the family takes charge of the
important krifi, that is to say, that if a woman has sisters
and daughters, her sisters take precedence in the matter.

In Mohammedan areas they sacrifice to the mother on the
Monday following the sacrifice to the father. Both sacrifices
must be offered or the dead people will " take " the
defaulters.

A man who is a stranger in a town cannot offer tu his
parents who died far away, for the dead people of the town
would take all his offering ; hence he goes outside ; the dead
will just take their bread and go ; after this he need not fear
that they will humbug him.

If, however, they have annoyed him, he takes a broken
calabash, a stone, and some dirty rice with pepper in it, as a
fitting offering; he tells his relatives that they are bad, and
therefore get bad things : " you don't want good for me, and
I don't want good for you."

It is, however, not only dead relatives, but dead men in
general, that may trouble the living ; if a man finds himself
annoyed in this way, he takes a stone and lays his hands on
it before giving it to the dead man. Outside some villages it
is possible to see a broken calabash (Plate VII) or pot lying
on a stone as an offering to the dead to prevent them from
following people home. Or a traveller may take some leaves
and put a stone on the top in the path, that bad "ghosts "
may not come after him, and make his journey unsuccessful.

If a man sneezes during a meal, he says the dead people
are begging, and takes food in his right hand ; this he throws
on the ground with his hand behind him, and says :
'' Xambaki, kolini ananu " (old people, here is yours).

Mohammedan teaching has naturally had great influence
on beliefs with regard to a future life. Whether for this

reason or some other, no trace of any belief as to reincarna-
tion is to be found, though this is a normal feature of negro
eschatology, either in the form of the reappearance of a dead
person who is recognisable in one of his descendants or
connexions, or in some vaguer form.

At the present day it is commonly stated that at death a
bad man goes to Yehenama (Yehanum) ; and among bad men
are included greedy men, robbers, liars, slanderers, the
envious, those who do not want to help anyone, those who
always " think bad about God," obstinate debtors and those
who refuse to lend money. They will remain in Yehenama
for an uncertain length of time, but eventually receive
forgiveness ; others think they may stay there for ever ; at
any rate they will not die again.

Heaven is a " clean " place where there is neither work
nor sleep nor sun nor darkness ; whatever a man wants, he
finds it at hand.

A less sophisticated conception was that Eokrifi (the place
of the dead) was in the air but not with God ; when a man
died God put " a little darkness " between living and
dead.

A belief in apparitions is found, but holds but an unimpor-
tant place in native ideas, as does also the belief in dreams
(see p. 86). On several occasions stories were told of
people who were seen some years after death ; in one case a
woman said she was weeding in a farm and saw the figure of
a woman known to her who had died two years before ; the
apparition raised its head and vanished as soon as it saw the
woman looking.

In another case a dead man was said to have been seen
washing in the river close to where his body had been laid
by the bearers during a brief halt. Another informant pro-
fessed to have seen a dead man in his grave trappings.

One informant told me of a case in which a dead man is
said to have communicated knowledge of the position of
some cutlasses to his brother. The dead man had hidden all
his cutlasses and his axe behind a large stone in the field and

told no one; he was killed in the war and the night after his
death had been announced, when they were lamenting his
death, his brother saw him in a dream and was shown where
the cutlasses were hidden.

It is firmly believed that some people die and reappear at
a place some distance away, where they live a normal life,
but vanish if any of their original friends approach them.
Their eyes are said to be turned back. This living again is
called falah.

VL_WITCHCRAFT.

Witchcraft appears to occupy an important place in native
beliefs; the witch is said to have power to take rice or
transfer it from one farm to another ; hence all sorts of rites
are performed to exclude them from the farms ; these
ceremonies are known as e,kap in Sanda, akanta (see p. 60)
in S. Timne. The witch is also believed to eat human beings,
who go on living and breathing till the heart is reached ; then
they die. This killing is said to be done with the eyes only.

Side by side with this belief is found the more ordinary
creed which attributes to the witch power of transformation,
into a bat or crocodile ; if the animal perishes, the witch meets
the same fate.

A witch is said to be born, not made, and to derive power
from the mother, because the mother eats a person and the
unborn child absorbs some of the cannibal feast. A witch
has akonto inside him ; this is like the stomach of a small
animal, round in shape, with many holes in it.

"Medicines" and ordeals are used to catch suspected
witches ; in the former case the guilty person falls sick and
confesses ; in this case water may be poured on the
" medicine " to free the witch from its influence. Some
people say, however, that confession will not save a witch.

If a person is bewitched but does not die, he " swears "
and the witch dies ; in this case a ceremony must be
performed and if it is not completed, a stone with thread
round it, and a piece of cloth, must be put in a tree, and the
name of the witch repeated : " You cannot move again to
injure me." This ceremony is apparently performed after
the death of witches, to prevent them from continuing their
activities after death. Another method is to rub leaves on
people that the dead witch may not follow them and cause

them to fall sick; the same medicine is sprinkled on the
farms.

Some witches offer to krifi, that the medicine may not
catch them, but now people "swear krifi on the medicine,"
i.e., tell the medicine to catch the krifi, for it is stronger
than the krifi, then the krifi takes his medicine and throws
it on the witch, who will die even in spite of confession.
Just as in Europe in the seventeenth century, it appears to be
exceedingly common for witches to confess to killing people,
spoiling farms and other crimes. For obvious reasons, however,
unless such a confession is made under circumstances that
permit of cross-examination — and this would be altogether
exceptional — -it is impossible to discover how far the witch
is self -deceived.

When an " oath medicine " was to be used, kola, salt, etc.,
in fact all things that they eat, were put in a cooking pot'
near the " medicine " ; a fowl was also brought and beaten
till it died, all present repeating, " If I am a witch, let me die."
After this the witch would fall sick if he ate fowl. The
killing of the fowl was not regarded as a satka; but all had
to partake of it, hence the ceremony is from one point of view
rather an ordeal than a trial by " medicine." When the witch
confessed, the "medicine" was brought and the "oath"
removed. The house of the person who had been bewitched
was put in charge of the repentant witch, who was supposed
to keep other witches at bay.

Another ceremony was to load a gun and put it down
with the " medicine." After all had " sworn " on the
medicine, i.e. cursed themselves if they were guilty, the head
man of the house fired the gun at the medicine and thus the
witch would be detected quickly.

Another method of detecting a witch was to drop a
decoction of ambare bark in a fowl's eyes, saying: " If he
is a witch, let him become blind." This method is obviously
closely related to the one mentioned above, but in the
present case the fowl seems to be taken as the representative
of the witch. If that is also the case where the fowl is beaten

to death, the subsequent ritual eating must be an intrusive
element, due to the resemblance of the rite to a piacular
sacrifice.

For the ordeal some decoction is commonly drunk ; this
may be of akon bark, beaten and shaken till it froths. A
platform is made, and the accused, with palm leaves tied
round the waist, mounts it ; rice, known as abonp (= gold)
is half cooked and must be swallowed without chewing ;
then the accuser recites the crimes attributed to the person
undergoing the ordeal, saying : " If it is not so, let us find
out ; when you drink, vomit, if you are not a member." The
accused person drinks six calabashes of the decoction and
swells up, if he is guilty.

Another account said the accuser was known as ukapepe,
and that he drank as well as the supposed witch, each taking
it in turn, till all was finished.

An innocent person was taken to the water-side and
washed. It was laid down that for a man who came from
the west a platform had to be made on the east road, and for
a man who came from the east, on the west road ; an accused
usually demanded to be put to the proof.

Another ordeal involved the use of a bare bark which
was scraped and put in a leaf funnel. Accused and accusers
were shut up in the house and all concerned had to practise
continence.

In the morning the accuser spoke out behind the house,
and the decoction was trickled into the eye of the witch,
causing him to become blind ; it was also dropped on the tips
of the fingers, and the joints. After being shut up in the
house the witch cried out and confessed ; an antidote was
dropped in the eye and the sight restored.

Even if twenty people were under trial, one and the same
funnel had to be used for all.

An innocent man received one head of money, £4, as
compensation, together with " expenses." The guilty person
had to pay compensation for any person he had killed, either
by money payment or transfer of property.

It is said that long ago witches were burnt, or tied up and
thrown into the water. A witch is buried naked, and the
body may be given to the owner of the medicine that killed
him or her. Other people dig the grave and go away. If a
cloth were used, the witch might return and trouble the
family. It is always said that ordinary people do not
return though witches do.

A witch is tied on a stick for burial and carried like an
animal. Some people divine with a pestle on which hair and
nails are tied ; others use the dead body itself. When the
bearers have hoisted it on their shoulders, they say : " As
you were living, what you said, is it true ?" That is to say,
they ask if the confession made in the man's life-time was
true. If the dead man was not a witch, the body swings
from side to side ; if he was a witch, the bearers go and
knock against some person ; but this does not mean that the
person in question was in any way implicated.

Sometimes more elaborate methods are employed ; sticks
are cut and made like a bier, and toe and finger nails and
hair are tied on them wrapped in a mat, doubtless to represent
the body, with a white cloth on the top ; the bearers dress in
white and carry e,tap in their hands; one has a sword.
They say, " Let her go out," and shake the leaves they are
carrying. Ashes are put in a circle round them with a fire-
stick in the middle ; if the leader, when the bearers begin to
march, steps clean out of the circle with his first foot, the
dead woman is acquitted; " she died of good" ; otherwise she
is pronounced a witch.

Then they halt and say, " Go and compliment the old
people " ; when they reach Rokambana, they halt, and also
leave the bier against the blacksmith's forge, for if the
woman were a witch, she could not go there. Then the old
men asked : " Was it your oil that went in your eyes ? "
(i.e., did your wickedness kill you ?) If she was a witch, the
bier will run with the people and strike against some one of
those who asked the question. If she was not a witch, the
bearers' heads will move and one of them will say she was

uot a witch. A second time they ask, "' Is it God alone that
took you?" The bier will take the bearers witli it and
strike the questioner, who will pronounce the woman a
witch. Then the " big people " tell her to show who is to
take care of her children, and she designates someone by
means of the bier.

A stone is often seen in the fork of a tree close to a
village ; this is said in some places to be a satka for witches,
probably to prevent them from entering the village. Near a
circumcision bush such a stone is a satka for the boys.

This stone is sometimes wrapped with thread and then in
a piece of cloth. It is put up by a person who has been
bewitched without being killed and has then killed the
witch with " medicine." A ceremony, of which I got no
details, has to be performed if a man is thus killed ; if the
ceremony is not performed, the stone is put in the fork of
the tree with the words : " You cannot move again to injure
me."

Possibly the ceremony referred to was to try the witch
naked, as the protection conferred by the rite just described
would not be required if the witch were then buried.

Susu. — Witches (kweremexi) are born, not initiated;
they put inside a man's house " medicine " in a pot, consisting
of rice, ground nut, sesame and fundi, which is buried inside
the door and causes him to get bad crops.

A witch can live in a crocodile or leopard and seize people ;
four or five go into one animal and if the animal is shot, they
die too.

Morimen make medicines (karafili) against witches and
put them in horns. A " prayer board " may be washed, and
if the water is mixed with the rice, a witch who eats of it
will swell up and die.

An ordeal for testing witches was for them to drink a
decoction of meli. A guilty person might be burnt; an
innocent man received the property of his accuser and all
members of his family as slaves.

A rope was tied to the foot of a dead witch and the body

was dragged to the field to be eaten by birds. If the corpse
was buried, no sticks were put over it and the ground was
beaten hard.

Limba. — Witches (bawgti) " kill " men when they sleep ;
when they wake, they say they are " killed." A witch takes
off witchcraft like a gown.

A witch is buried in banana leaves and thorns above
and below so that he cannot come again as momQpila
(ghost), which wears a white gown and stands in the door
without being seen. All people wake at once and tremble
and feel cold, any rice that is being cooked stops boiling, all
fires go out. A hole is found in the grave of a mQinQpila
out of which it comes ; a diviner watches for it and shoots
it ; he alone can see it but other people see blood.

To see if a person is a witch bare is put in his eye, which
bursts if he is guilty. A witch would not be sold by his own
family, but only compelled to work.

"Witches are born or can buy their powers ; they turn into
animals at night.

Karn^ti (Limba, Qingti) is brazed and scattered over a
farm, as if it w T ere seed, to keep witches away. Iron slag
(nagara) is all efficacious.

e 2

VII— SATKA, WANK A, etc.

SATKA (OFFERING.)

Under the name of satka are known a variety of rites,
some involving the actual killing of an animal, others the
letting it go as a scapegoat or keeping it in the yard as a
sacrosanct animal ; in others vegetable oblations are made ;
others again consist in the blessing and gift of clothes, or in
a similar ritual followed by the wearing of them by the
sacrificer, who is also the officiant. In other cases the
offering is simply exposed, or brought in contact with some
object with " virtue " in it ; and in yet others, protective
against witches, there is no offering at all, the charm being
put down in the farm in precisely the same way as in
ordinary magical rites, save that the name of God —
Kurumasaba — is called on. Finally there are ceremonies
known as satka which, if we had no information about them
beyond a simple description, would be regarded as rites of
sympathetic or mimetic magic.

The sympathetic rites are comparatively few and hardly
typical ; thus we find bread rubbed on a cutlass before
farming operations, so that children may not wound
themselves ; a gown which a man has worn is put upon an
anthill after a satka to secure good health for him.

The mimetic rites, on the other hand, are a large and
important body of ceremonies, which have, we may suppose,
been drawn into the satka complex under Mohammedan
influence, which naturally desired to control as far as possible
heathen ritual, while on the other hand Mohammedan rites
were doubtless regarded as very efficacious even by those
who professed heathenism ; finally the half-converted heathen

would naturally make such heathen rites as he retained
conform to the Mohammedan form.

Chief among mimetic rites may be mentioned the custom
of hanging up a fan which swings in the breeze and is
believed to be efficacious in blowing away evil influences.
Water is brought and burning grass from each house is
quenched, in order that fire may not break out. Iron is
buried under the threshold in order that what is said by the
household may be weighty. Hooked sticks are fastened one
in another in order that unity may prevail. Under this head,
too, may possibly be classed the various obstacles (Plate YII)
which are put at the entrance to a farm or under the threshold
of a house to keep away witches, bad krifi, and evil-disposed
persons and influences ; or the similar rites intended to keep
people from leaving a town or a house. Outside a towm is
often seen a faggot of a hundred haulms of elephant grass
tied in a bundle with red cloth ; this is sacrificed that
danger may not come ; but the explanation is not clear.

In the farm " small things," such as rice husks and other
rubbish, are put in a fish trap and hung high up, that the
rice may stand high. A pot may be broken as a sacrifice for
the house, that bad people may be " broken " in like manner.
A blacksmith may make a straight knife for a sacrificer, that
work and all other things may be " straight." A broom may
be hung over the door that the house may be " clean " and no
bad sickness come in it.

In all these cases perhaps there is at least a semblance of
a sacrifice or offering; but in the satka against snakes a
piece of bush rope is dragged along the ground and beaten by
children or cut to pieces by a man ; the oral rite accompanies
it, but there is no touching of hands.

In a typical satka the victim or object lies upon the
ground and all participants put their hands upon it, or, if
they cannot get near, stretch their hands towards it, praying
audibly for the blessing for which the " sacrifice " is
offered. The sacrificer himself may of course be the sole
participant.

The term "sacrifice" as a translation for satka (Arabic
(djjus) ^ s an obvious misnomer. It is of the essence
of a sacrifice that something should be consumed, and this
element is far from being present in all satka — in fact,
some of the rites consist, not in offering or consuming the
object, but in retaining it and using it — e.g., a cap, in the
ordinary way.

One singular rite deserves special mention, as it differs
widely from the ordinary satka, and we seem to be coming
near a visible representation of the recipient of the satka,
though, singularly enough, nothing is offered, and a living
man, though not the sacrificer himself, is represented.

A short pole is hung on a tree by a cord and beaten every
morning with ekati ; it represents the son of the sacrificer
when he has gone to Freetown or elsewhere to work. The
father addresses it, saying : " If my son does not sit on a
stick in the place where he is, let him not return ; if he sits
on a stick, let him return." As people everywhere sit down,
this is equivalent to a prayer for his return. The object of
the beating with ekati was not known.

Here only the oral rite remained, and the ceremony could
not even be called an offering. In the ordinary satka also
the oral rite is probably far more important than the manual
rite, and the following may be taken as an example of the
form used ; it is employed at the crowning of a chief : " I
have come this morning to sacrifice, as I have been crowned ;
may God send me good strangers ; may I be able to make
my people fear, so that there may be no crime in the
country ; my people must get good crops and their children
live long ; if any witch wants to ' spoil' my crown, may he
die soon, so that I may not see a man who disobeys me, and
that all my old ancestors may stand behind me ; that I may
rule well and have no trouble. 1 hope I may not be dis-
graced in any place. That is all."

In the oral rite we have, in fact, the sole element of unity
in the heterogeneous satka rites. They cannot then be
adequately classified either from the point of view of the

form of the manual rite nor of the ohject to be attained, save
in the most general way. It may, however, be observed
that, though these objects may be positive, such as causing a
person in the house to be of weight in the councils of the
community, the aim is far more often the averting of evil,
such as a violent death, injury to the crops, damage by fire,
and so on. It is clear that many sacrifices, such as those for
long life, prosperity, and health, though apparently positive,
are in reality negative, and are intended to effect their object
by averting the evil influences which hinder the good fortune
or threaten the life of the sacrificer.

A certain number of sacrifices appear to depend for their
efficacy on secondary oral rites over and above those of the
satka proper. If a child, for example, is sick, rice may be
sacrificed for it, and given to a passing stranger or some old
person. The meaning of the gift is not, as might be sur-
mised, that the sickness of the child is to be transferred to
the stranger or old person ; on the contrary, the cure, in
some cases, is said to depend on the prayers offered by the
recipient of the rice or other object sacrificed.

On the other hand, when a rich man wishes to " sacrifice "
a print gown, he must wear it for several days and then per-
form the rite after laying it on an anthill. Here the gown
is first of all brought into intimate association with the
sacrificer, and the validity of the sacrifice is enhanced by the
choice of an anthill as the scene of the rite, for the krifi are
believed to have their abode in anthills ; at any rate, the
anthill being a frequent object in magical rites, it seems
clear that some virtue is believed to go out of it into the
garment, and thus indirectly benefit the man who has worn
the garment.

We find an entirely different class of ideas in the renuncia-
tion satka, in which a person gives up his most cherished
possession in order to obtain a wish. The idea is hardly
reconcilable with that of the efficacy of the oral rite, and it
may well be that the oral rite by which it is accompanied is
a later accretion, due to Mohammedan influence.

As a general rule the gift idea of sacrifice is seldom found :
offeriugs to ancestors are, of course, an exception ; and there
is a kind of sham gift — a stone or bad rice — that is offered to
a dead person who troubles a man (Plate VII). In some
places, probably under Mohammedan influence, an offering
of bread is made to Kurmnasaba on the spot where the
calabash stood in which the bread was made ; and Kurmn-
asaba and the "good krifi" are the recipients of a bread
offering put in the bush near the farm.

The manual rite (see p. 53) appears to be exceedingly
simple ; in none of the sacrifices at which I was present was
there any trace of any preparation of either tbe victim, the
sacrificer, or the participators. Corresponding to this sim-
plicity and confirming the observation is the fact that the
victim is not masem — sacrosanct; the bones are simply
thrown away. An animal may be specially reserved to be
kept about the house, but this does not seem to imply any
special sanctity ; the idea is more akin to sympathetic magic,
for in the case of a fowl satka for the long life of a new-
born child the fowl is kept about the house until it gets old ;
then another one is selected, and the substitution made by
placing the young fowl on the top of the child's head. In
the same way, if a sheep satka is made for the house, it
is killed (not sacrificed) when it is old and replaced l»y
another.

There may, of course, be a subsidiary idea that, the sacri-
fice having been made to Kurumasaba, the continued pres-
ence of the animal acts as a continual reminder of the prayer
that has been made, and the same holds good in the case of
garments that are worn after the satka. But of this I saw
no evidence, and no informant made any suggestion bearing
on the point.

There is an apparent exception to the rule that the victim
is not sacrosanct, for when a goat is sacrificed at the founda-
tion of a new town, the flesh is eaten, but the skin, head, and
feet are buried in the middle of the town, " that the town
may he steady." Here again, however, the possibility cannot

be rejected that the root idea is now one of sympathetic
magic.

In the case of a victim, when the animal's throat has been
cut, water is sometimes used to wash the blood from the
throat ; but as the blood is commonly allowed to run on the
ground, without any attempt at collecting it, and no special
place is allotted for this outpouring of blood, the washing of
the throat does not seem to bear any special significance.

In the case of offerings to ancestors and to krifi, there is
some trace of the communal meal, though it is often limited
to the rice bread ; occasionally a portion of the animal, such
as the liver, is devoted entirely to the recipient of the
satka.

It is only very rarely that this offering is made to Kuruma-
saba also., and in no case is an offering made to him alone.
Possibly we may see in this evidence that the position of
Kuru, or, at any rate, the appeal to him in the oral rite, is
the result of Mohammedan influence.

It has been shown on another page that wanka and
mas am are not clearly distinguished. One informant also
regarded the satka as not only protective in the sense of
warding off evil, but actually punitive. A sacrifice may be
offered for the cattle if leopards hairy them. A cow is killed,
and all eat of the fiesh ; a bad man who tries to injure them
will be " caught " by the satka, and his belly will swell. He
must then apply to the mo, rim an who buried the first charms
in the compound where the sacrifice was made. He brings
" books," water, and kola, and divines with the kola; if both
halves are " open," water is thrown on the ground, a charm
(sebe) is hung on the neck of the sufferer, and one is given
him to drink by writing words on a " prayer board," washing
them off and giving him the liquid as a draught.

In a certain number of cases the satka resembles, at any
rate outwardly, a rite of transference of evil. If sickness is
frequent, all pray on a stone, and it is put in the fork of a
tree ; if a man is summoned by his chief, a fowl is put on his
head ; all pray on it, and it is released. If the coining of

war is feared, a spotted fowl is " sacrificed " and released far
from the town.

Susu. — The same fundamental idea of sacrifice (se.raxe)
is found in this tribe, but certain special features call for
notice.

The sacrifice against witches, etc., is a banana stem planted
outside the town ; this was found in the Timne area as a
satka against falling from a palm-tree. All men of the
town take part and pray that the witches may die; finally,
arrows are fired from toy bows and strips of cloth tied to the
stem. The rite is not an annual one, but is practised only in
certain years.

The colour of the victim is of more importance than in the
Timne area, where a black fowl figures only in a sacrifice for
rain. A black fowl is sacrificed on the first day of work in
the farm, that workers may neither fall sick nor wound
themselves. A white fowl is kept in a compound against
bad yinna, and every Friday all the people in the house
touch the fowl and pray for peace. When it thunders, a red
cock is killed in the middle of the yard, and small children
eat it with rice ; white cotton is ' : sacrificed " and put round
the house. A white fowl is sacrificed at seed-time.

The sacrifice against fire is to plant an old pestle in the
ground outside the town ; from each house a head pad of
grass is brought and strung on it.

Uice bread is sacrificed in the house every Thursday
evening to the father and mother, and small children eat it
after an hour.

Koranko. — The conception of saroko seems to be vaguer
in this tribe. An empty basin may be covered and small
children told that there is rice inside. When the lid is
raised, they cry with disappointment ; then you will not
suffer from disease and your enemies, contrary to their
expectations, will find you well. The idea is obviously
mimetic ; but, in a rite to secure that a climbing rope will
not break, the opposite idea prevails ; a rope may be knotted
and cut in two on the road and then the rope actually in use

is safe. The imitation is there, in a way, but it seems
equally valid to explain the rite as one of substitution.

In neither of these cases does there appear to be any oral
or manual rite. In another case, where a form of words is
used, the formula suggests a spell rather than a prayer. A
man who has palaver with the chief puts a stone in the fork
of a tree and says : " If you move of yourself, let my palaver
be big ; if you cannot move unless people move you, let it be
looked upon as a foolish case."

Some of the farming rites, though not reckoned to the
sarake, resemble them in form. Grass stems are cut in the
farm, and sand procured from water near ; then prayer is
offered that as there is much sand in the water and all
cannot be removed, so let there be so much rice that all
cannot be reaped.

A creeper called ratohk is cut and beaten : then a stick
Ls split and a piece of the creeper, three inches long, put in
the split ; two of these sticks are put facing each other at
the entrance to the farm, so that, as a thing put in its proper
place cannot move, so the rice cannot go away from the
farm When the rice is reaped, three small bunches are cut
and put, one on the sand, one on each of the sticks.

Loko. — The same vague conception of satka (caga) as
among the Koranko is occasionally found. Water may be
boiled and covered with a fan ; when the children come, you
offer the rice and there is none, they cry ; this saves you
from shame.

Generally speaking, however, mimetic rites, or rites which
may involve the idea of transference or of a scape-animal,
seem to be prominent. A live fish may be returned to the
water to protect a man against evil; a gun may be fired with
prayer, to keep away enemies, or a toad transfixed with a
knife for the same purpose. An egg may be dashed on the
ground with prayer, that the backbiters may be scattered.

When rice is offered to the ngofo (krifi) they eat it,
although the rice appears to remain where it was put.

Limba. — The conception of sacrifice (sarak a) seems to be

Less vague in some respects, but one informant stated that
they " prayed to the sheep," sacrificed by order of a diviner,
and then cut its throat. One rite shows the close relation-
ship between divination and sacrifice, which finds a parallel
in the similar relation between omen and in a so in among
the Timne : white and red kola are offered with prayer, and
then split and thrown, that bad things may not come. From
the accounts of divination given on other pages it is clear that
the diviner is regarded, not so much as foretelling already
predetermined events, as himself deciding what the future
will be. If the first throw is bad, a second may be tried and
even a third ; or the conditions may be changed. Among the
Limba the compelling power of the diviner's act is recognised
by their inclusion of it among sacrifices.

Generally speaking the blessing, and mimetic rites, seem
to be the most important features in sacrifice among the
Limba.

PROTECTIVE PJTES.
WANKA.

There are numerous practices and charms for the
protection of property against thieves and witches ; charms
against the former are called wanka, the latter kanta; the
term kanta is used because the charms are believed to
" close " the farm against evil influences and thus preserve
the rice and other crops from harm. The original meaning
of wanka was not ascertained.

There is no very obvious line of demarcation between
these protective magical practices and the satka (" sacrifice "),
such as fans or suspended pieces of calabash whose object is
to blow away the " bad breeze," i.e., evil influences, or the
a l»eni pa, distinguished from the satka by the fact that the
name of God — Kurumasaba — is not mentioned in connection
with the latter.

As a lypical wanka may be taken the apot or medicine
ball ; this consists of a small roof over a piece of calabash in
which lies a ball of mud — hence the name — in which are

Plate VIII.

stuck small pieces of stick with raw cotton wrapped round
the ends " to make it look dreadful to the thieves."

The wanka is put up by anyone who knows how to make
it ; some men may be able to give details of a dozen different
kinds, others may not know one. When the wanka apQt
is put down, the operator chews kola and spits all round the
calabash — a common feature in other forms of wanka — and
says : " We put this kola nut down to keep our kola ; if
anyone steals, let his arm or leg swell." If anyone steals
and a swelling results, the thief must call in a diviner (omen),
who will tell him he has been caught by wanka and direct
him to go to the man who put it up ; he is, of course, not
necessarily the owner of the kola tree. From this man the
thief obtains medicine leaves to put on his swelled limb ;
these leaves are, in many cases, the same as those used in the
composition of the wanka.

When the kola is ripe, the maker of the wanka is
summoned and told to take off the charm. In putting it
down he has used his right hand, now he uses his left hand
and removes the calabash and mud ball, saying : " I came
and put you up ; now I come and take you off." Then the
owner can harvest his kola.

Other accounts say that the mud must be boiled, probably
in order that the affected limb may be hot and painful ; or
that in boring the holes for the cotton the operator says :
" Cause sores, therefore I bore holes." In taking off the
wanka, leaves must be used with the left hand ; and my
informant thought that only the owner could take the
wanka off, but that if he died he would hand down to his
son the knowledge of what leaves to use. There is, however,
no reason to suppose that he cannot summon another person
to put down the wanka.

One informant stated that even if the owner put down the
wanka, he must perform the wanki ceremony to remove it,
or he himself would be " caught."

Under the head of totemism is mentioned the fact (p. 136)
that some quas i-totemistic tabus are termed wanka; this

suggests that the leaves, etc., used in making; the wanka
may, in some cases at least, have been tabued and were
subsequently taken for use in protective magic ; according to
one definition a wanka differs from a kanta, in that it is
put down by people who know how to cure diseases (i.e.,
those caused by the wanka); on this theory the leech
employed by those who infringed a tabu conceived the idea
of using the forbidden plant as a charm. It is at least very
suggestive that for the cure of disease caused by a wanka
the same kind of leaves must be taken as are used to make
the wanka.

As an example may be taken the wanka known as
amintai; mintais said to mean fearless, but it is not clear
why this name should be used. At Matoteka, amintai is
said to " catch " the leg bone and to be caused by cutting the
leaves of the wanka (i.e., tabu) tree in clearing the bush;
the leaves of the tree are used as a remedy.

According to another informant the amintai wanka is
made of e, sit a leaves tied in a bundle and hung on the tree ;
kola must be chewed, as for the wanka apot, and the spell
pronounced. A thief gets a sore on his leg which is called
amintai. Etol leaves were named by another village, and
the same leaves mixed with ambaka formed the remedy.
I was told in one place that anyone who cures rheumatism
can cure amintai ; but my informant made more than one
strange statement and was perhaps not wholly reliable ; he
said, for example, that some krifi (see p. 31) suffer from
katuk, which seems to be epilepsy, and that anyone who
follows them along a road will get epilepsy, which lie
included among wanka.

At Maka, amintai was said to be a woman's wanka;
the leaves were to be wrapped in a broken mat and placed
on a small platform. The suffering thief was to be cured by
a vapour bath of a decoction of the same leaves.

There are, however, other wanka which cannot be
explained, as can amintai, by the utilisation of former tabu
plants; kalapot (fire stick), for example, seems to be a

kind of mimetic magic. The operator must hang it up
by a rope and put a roof over it, repeating the usual charm,
and declaring that his eye' is to pain him, getting red like
fire. As a remedy they take e,lap leaves and rub them in
the hands after warming them ; then they are put in a leaf
funnel and the juice is dropped in the affected eye.

Another informant said that kokant should be cut and
half burned for this wanka, while a third thought it was
formed of a splinter which caused the head of the thief to
turn.

Another kind of wanka punishes the thief by the object
used becoming, as it were, tabu to him. Aiibata is a small
mat and when it " catches " a thief, he cannot lie on a mat,
but only sit. To cure him, the owner applies the mat to the
painful spot and says : "Wanka, leave him alone, I know
who stole."

The eyebe wanka is in some places a simple tabu
wanka (see p. 136). Elsewhere it resembles an ordinary
wanka, but the penalty falls on a woman of the family of
the thief, or on her child, which suffers from diarrhoea.
Another informant said that it was a mat and an anthill put
under an orange tree to protect it ; if a woman sucked an
orange, her children suffer from diarrhoea, unless they are
cured by being seated on the wanka; this cannot be done
till the child is old enough to have its head shaved. Only
women who have not borne children are liable to be caught ;
once caught they can go on eating oranges without further
ill consequences.

According to one informant, ankokoa is a simple tabu
wanka and affects a man in the ribs, if he cuts the leaves of
this tree so that they die on the ground ; a cure is effected
by a man with red beads. Another account says that this
wanka is a broken mat, and that as a remedy must be used
a broken mat reddened with camwood and put on the
patient's ribs.

The horn of an animal called ambok, which is also a
totem, is another tabu wanka; when the animal is killed

one of the clan that forbids this animal gets the horns and
uses them to cure sufferers by rubbing them.

But the idea of tabu is not necessarily present, for the
name wank a is also applied to kase,re, dry rice, which at
times causes intestinal troubles when too much is eaten ; the
remedy is to get e,toma leaves, and drink the decoction as
a laxative. This wank a is so classed simply because pain
results from the use of it. A similar wanka is a mat,
because a man gets pains in his ribs if he lies long on it ;
children put small mats in a cleft stick and stroke the
patient.

Another application of the term wanka is to the small
broom called akuso, put up at the entrance to a farm.
When a man's foot hurts him, the broom is warmed at the
fire and he puts his foot on it and then throws it away
outside the town. Here apparently there is no question of
the broom having caused the disease and the remedy is of the
nature of transference of disease.

Name.

Description.

" Causes."

Cure.

asar ...

(1) a stone with sticks

jaw and

in front and behind.

arm pains.

(2) stone wrapped in

mat.

(3) stone in split stick

leaves.

akal ...

leaves in a " hamper"

waist
pains.

apQpe

broken calabash hung

stomach-

gpur pur decoction.

on tree.

ache.

tame

snail shell on kola

jaw pains

§ d u m a leaves ground

tree.

and rubbed on ; de-

coction of old leaves

to wash mouth.

koparanta ...

palm mid - rib and

pain in

outer bark with

ribs.

splinter passed

through.

antakia

crossed sticks.

rabumperona

cow bone hung on
tree.

kagbet

kind of palm with
"thorns," medicine
on it.

Name.

Description.

" Causes."

Cure.

ka ynn

fish-trap

elephanti-
asis.

kabara

palm nuts

eve pains

decoction of palm

(1) in broken calabash

nut and leaves.

(2) in cleft stick.

anbelih

(1) ankonta bark ...

(2) seed.

jaw pain.

ankonta

a n k n t a seed in split

teeth

bark decoction to

stick.

bleed.

wash mouth.

akentekeira

"stick for sitting
down " antolo leaf
tied on.

ankompia ...

seed of ankompia

succession

hung on tree

of boils.

kafgnt

cowries hung on tree

eye pains.

anbentebede

seed of a n k o n k o r o, t

broken

near tree.

arm.

ragbenle

looped palm leaves ...

s on
face.

asamtatak ...

is in pot...

cough

decoction to drink.

at is ...

knife under tree

pain in

split wood and put

ribs.

on ribs.

akara

" things" in mat

1 '1 1(1 V

leaves for vapour

swells.

bath.

tarak

palm mid-iib cross-

pain in

nil) wanka on side.

tied with hi ire.

libs.

ralil

pot, red base with

red marks

leaves burned to

white spots.

ashes rubbed on.

abopr

leaf of boforoko in

pain in

chew akam and rub

split stick.

rilis.

on.

...

fori leaf tied on
ground.

eye pain

vapour bath.

kasam kaloko

palm leaves knotted

pain in

three times.

ribs.

kumban

"like tree."

death of
children.

(see p. 188).

atoboli

ekqnton leaves tied
with thread on three
sticks.

( [ysentery

juice of leaves.

asetene

palm mid-rib cleft,
with thorns from
bush yams and mid-
rib passed through.

(a) native ladder"]

(b) tortoise shell |

('/) chewed kola j
(>') stone

Name.

Description.

"( lauses."

Cure.

kawonko

plaited palm leaf

inability

dip plaited palm leaf

to drink

in decoction of cer-

water.

tain leaves and rub
on throat.

masapia

young palm leaves

griping

amfikan bark from

knotted.

pains

east and west sides

(thief's

of tree whose top

child).

was broken off be-
fore leaves came out.
Wooden basin of
decoction on rubbish
heap, bambu across
it ; dip child in it.

antibi-tibi ...

(1) unbroken calabash

(1) many

(1) decoction of mala-

bored, and cotton

sores.

nsumatakr leaves

inserted in holes ;

(2) chancre

as wash ; and young

set up in farm.

leaves of akant

(2) bush rope.

mashed and applied.
(2) decoction as wash;
a pi 1 leaves and bark
boiled; sores washed
with water and
" cream " applied.

antint

"ogusi " seed

sores on
scrotum.

katunto

loss of
nose.

tasak

small leaves tied like

pain in

comb, and split kola

ribs.

amQpia

katap and kalolum

jaw pain

vapour bath.

With the exception of antibitibi all the foregoing appear
to be tabu wank a. The action seems to be regarded as
automatic, for one informant said that if a wanka found a
stolen object near a man's house, it might " catch " him by
mistake ; or a wanka may catch a weak man who passes near
it, even if he is not a thief ; or it may catch a man who puts
his foot upon a stolen object.

It is difficult to say how far there is an animistic implica-
tion in this.

In this connection it is worthy of note that a " sacrifice" is
offered to a wanka when it is put down ; and that one way

of curing pains caused by it is to spit chewed kola both on
the wank a and on the part affected.

Exceptionally the term wanka is used of the tabu put by
the chief upon the palm nuts and other fruits until they are
ripe. There does not appear to be any ceremony or material
evidence of the wanka; but this application of the word is
clearly not very remote from the primary one, in which so
much depends upon the spoken word. A breach of this
wanka may lie punished by a fine of £4. The measure is of
obvious utility as a guarantee against theft.

Koranko. Wanka (laroh). — The automatic conception of
the protective rite is seen in the belief that if a spider's web
passes through the laroh and touches a man, he will be
"caught," even if he is not a thief.

Yalunka. — The name for wanka is sugure.

Loko. Wanka (ha). — A number of protective rites are
known, all of which seem to have Tinme names, and are,
therefore, derived on one side or the other.

AKANTA (ABEMPA).

The difference between kanta and wanka was explained
by one informant to lie in the fact that the kanta was put
down by diviners, the wanka by people who knew how to
cure diseases. Generally speaking, the kanta appears to be
" medicine " put at the entrance of a farm to keep away
krifi and witches.

The kanta are also known as bempa, which are frequently,
in some forms at least, undistinguishable from satka, but are
recognisable by the fact that the name of God — Kurumasaba
— is not pronounced in making the bempa.

In many cases a " gate " is put up at the entrance ; this
may be a mat with an ant-heap inside hung from two sticks.
Water is thrown on the medicine when the witch confesses
and its effect ceases.

Another form is a bottle sunk in the ground at the entrance
to a farm.

F 2

'When they want to hoe, a fowl and rice are offered to a
pot in the farm, which a diviner puts np for good crops with
thread and leaves (or hark) inside and a roof over it ; in offer-
ing the fowl they say they wish that they may get good crops
and that no one may he hurt; a handful of hoiled rice is put
near the pot and the rest of the rice eaten with the fowl.

The same ritual is used when krifi are declared hy the
diviner to he near.

Near the entrance to the farm a log with a small stick
hooked into it, or two hooked sticks, are put down for good
crops ; they are explained as "being good to keep away witches.
Another method is to get medicine and "swear" and get
angry in the farm.

Another Item pa is a rod with seven small sticks tied on
the top ; ashes are strewn before it and a bottle planted ; the
small sticks have a ball of thread or cotton tied on the top of
each.

Bush rope (akap) is sometimes tied in a bundle and buried
at the entrance of the farm ; or a pestle with two head pods
strung on it is fastened across the path with two sticks.

Alter hoeing the farm a fan may be hung from a stick ; the
farmer puts it on the stone in the middle of the farm (p. 174)
and puts his hands on it, saying, " I come and sacrifice that I
may have plenty of rice." The stick on which it is hung is
put near the stone and the fan keeps away bad things and
trouble.

VIII.— RITUAL PROHIBITIONS.

Under the head of mas am — forbidden — are grouped a
large number of beliefs and practices which have, for our
ideas, no very clear bond of union. They are, however, very
definitely distinguished from the simply "bad" in some
cases, and must consequently be regarded as ritual in their
nature with an underlying magico-religious idea. It is, how-
ever, somewhat singular that no idea of mas am is said to
attach either to a corpse, provided it is that of an ordinary
person, not a member of a secret society, or to a victim after
sacrifice ; the fundamental idea must therefore be widely
different from those which are familiar to us in Semitic and
other ancient religious systems.

Another anomalous feature is that though a piacular sacri-
fice is sometimes enjoined when a breach of masam takes
place, in other cases no purification is regarded as possible ;
in yet other cases no evil consequences of any sort are feared,
and hence no piacalv.ui is needed ; and in others again the
guilty party purges himself by a fine paid to the chief.

But more remarkable than either of these anomalies is the
fact that under mas am are included acts which seem to be
forbidden as contrary to ordinary prudence. Thus, it is
mas am to treat parents-in-law disrespectfully, for they would
take away the wife. Again, two brothers of the whole blood
should not embark in one canoe ; for if it upset, both would
be drowned ; a man should not take with him in one canoe
both his wife and his mother ; for if he saved his mother, his
wife's parents would object, and if he saved his wife, his
mother would curse him, thus introducing, it is true, a con-
tingent magico-religious element. In another case theft was
said to be mas am, because if a man stole, the wife's family

would take away Loth her and her children ; here the magico-
religious element was less remote, for it was stated that they
would be taken away to escape the effects of the curse that
would " catch " the thief ; even here, however, the magico-
religious sanction was not regarded as acting directly.

Another masani which seems to be clearly referable to
utilitarian grounds is the prohibition of killing a gravid
animal — cow or goat — but it seems improbable that the utili-
tarian element was here the reason for the prohibition ; con-
siderations of profit alone, with no possible religious factor —
for respect for the life of lower animals is not found in West
Africa, either as an indigenous or an imported feature — could
well have suggested the practice, but not its religio- magical
basis ; perhaps we may see in it, however, an element intro-
duced, possibly with the cow, by Arabic, or at any rate
Mohammedan, influence.

In none of the examples cited above has there been any-
thing specially sacred about the persons or animals affected
by the breach of the mas am. The case is different in certain
prohibitions concerning actions affecting the chief, who is
mas am before crowning, and observes all his life long a
number of prohibitions not enjoined on the layman. Among
the rules laid down to regulate the behaviour of the ordinary
individual to the chief are that he must not shake hands
holding in his hand a knife, or a fowl, or a rope tied round
the neck of a cow. In this last case the grounds of the
prohibition are the more uncertain ; for it is also forbidden to
lead a cow through a village without informing the head man,
on some obscure ground connected with ancestor worship ; at
any rate, if a cow is so led, two heads of tobacco must be
given to the head man, who informs the ancestors that tins
has been done and that they can allow the cow to pass ; for
it is held that if this is not done, the cow will stop dead on
the other side of the town and refuse to go on.

It is not uncommon among primitive peoples to find certain
actions on the part of animals forbidden, and piacular sacri-
fices enjoined to remove the ill effects ; the only typical case

of this sort recorded among the Timne was that relating to
the crowing of a fowl at night ; in such a case some people
kill the fowl and eat it, others give it away.

It is, however, somewhat remarkable to find omens included
under the head of mas 9m ; but one informant stated that if
a " spider " (probably a beetle is meant) " beat its dram in a
man's ear," it is masam, and a relative will die; no piacular
sacrifice or other measure will avert the result. Here it
seems as though the " drumming " is not regarded as simply
ominous, but as itself bringing about the result.

This relation of cause and effect is clearly seen in the pro-
hibition which forbids a pregnant woman to go where the
entrails of a big animal have been emptied, under pain of
producing a changeling, or a child that is only half human, or
of having some vague trouble during parturition.

Another class of masam. is clearly animistic in its origin.
Certain patches of bush are forbidden and a man who enters
them is believed to vanish ; this is clearly because they were
especially connected with the worship of krifi in pre-Moham-
medan days ; the penalty is less alarming in the case of a
bush where no one may carry a fire-stick, on pain of having
it taken away and carried round a big cotton-tree, after which
it disappears.

It is forbidden to take an iron pot, or a brass kettle, to
certain streams, because of the krifi, not, however, because of
harm that will come to the human being.

The active resentment of the krifi is also feared in some
places : for if a farm be made where they live, no rice will
grow or, alternatively, the farmer will die.

On the other hand, young boys cannot go near the burial
place of the " old people " or they will get fever, to avert
which the oldest man in the village must sacrifice rice, palm
oil and a fowl, and the father explains that he did not send
the boy. Even a man may not go inside the boromasar
hut except for ritual purposes ; if he falls sick, he must
sprinkle palm wine and ask to get well.

Not only the ancestors collectively, but the individual dead,

irrespective of kinship, may be feared ; it is forbidden, when
anyone dies in Mabum, for anyone in the whole town to have
sexual connection ; this is clearly regarded as disrespectful to
the dead, for if they err from ignorance, no harm will result ;
among the possible penalties are, that both culprits will
die, or the child will be born with eyes all white, or that the
woman's belly will swell.

Cutting down a tree near a grove is regarded as masam,
though grass and seedlings may be cut.

The remaining mas am, which form the great mass, relate
in the main to (a) parents and relatives ; (b) rice and other
crops ; (c) bundu, and circumcision initiants ; (d) secret
societies ; (e) certain diseases. They refer largely to sexual
intercourse, especially in the first three cases. The result of
a breach of the prohibition is in some cases supposed to be
nil, but this is probably due to a general decadence of primi-
tive belief and custom, under Mohammedan influence, in the
last fifty years. Where a sanction exists, it is comparatively
rare for a remedy to be known against the misfortune caused
by the misconduct.

The penalty is visited in some cases directly on the offender,
by way of disease or death ; in other cases the punishment,
while still a personal one, is indirect and falls on some person
other than the offender ; in a large number of cases the crops
(or other property) of the offender, or, properly speaking, the
crops with which the offender is brought in contact, are
believed to fail as a result of misconduct.

Taking first the comparatively small class of cases in which
actions are prohibited because of the curses that might follow
them, we find that this is only a ground for m as am in
the case of the nearest relatives ; the father must be obeyed
or he will curse you ; so must the mother, for if she says : " I
hope you will be left in the world like the wind " (i.e. wander-
ing from place to place and owning nothing), there is noway
of saving the object of the curse. Under the same head may
probably be reckoned the prohibition of treating parents-in-law
disrespectfully, which has already been mentioned. It seems

probable that it is to avoid a wife's curses that a man may not
take her property to give to one of her mates, nor have con-
nection with two wives on the same night. A similar rule
forbids a man to bring a woman " friend " (komani) to his
house for sexual relations without his wife's leave ; his wife
might be notified by her husband and summon the woman,
without the knowledge of the husband of the latter, and
yet not sacrifice her own self-respect ; the " friend " would
remain half the night and go home without her husband's
knowledge.

Under this head, too, may perhaps be classed the rules
requiring a woman to respect her hushand and, e.g., answer
when he calls, kneel when she comes at his summons, bring
him water when he demands it, offer food, etc., with the right
hand, not cook rice and then go out, and so on.

Conversely a husband may not go on beating his wife until
he wounds her.

All these latter cases, however, are somewhat obscure,
though they belong to the general body of negro custom and
are found over a wide area.

The obvious reason that such actions would cause ill-feeling
can hardly account for their being regarded as ritually
forbidden, apart from the risk of cursing.

It is equally forbidden to curse one's parents, one's sister,
or one's step -father; but there is nothing to prevent a man
from expressing himself freely with regard to his paternal or
maternal uncles.

Under this head, too, we may perhaps class the rule that
forbids a man's sister's son from climbing his kola tree ; the
result of this is supposed to be that the pods fall of them-
selves ; the mother has to take a strip of cloth and beg her
brother, who offers a prayer and puts the strip down probably
near the tree. It is quite uncertain why the climbing of the
tree should be supposed to have this effect ; but it is clear
that the action of the mother is intended to prevent some
ulterior ill effects to the son.

Among general sexual prohibitions are the common ones

forbidding connection in the bush or during the day
(forbidden by the Eagbenle society). A woman must wash
after having connection or she will swell. Two brothers may
not have connection with the same woman ; probably for the
same reason that, if two men have had connection with the
same woman, one may not see the other one sick, because he
will fall sick himself, or die, if he sees the corpse. A widow
is probably forbidden for animistic reasons (see pp. 75, 128).
A man may not have connection with a pregnant woman who
is not his wife ; nor with his wife if she is advanced in
pregnancy. After child-birth, relations are not resumed for
two or three years, or the child will die.

Incest is of course strictly forbidden, stress being laid
mainly on relations with mother, sister, mother-in-law,
daughter-in-law, father's wife, or younger brother's wife (in
some places this is olas — wicked — but not masom). The
penalty, however, for these oifences does not seem to be
heavy; a man who offends with his mother-in-law risks
having his wife taken away ; one who commits incest with
mother or sister is regarded as a witcli ; he is fined £4 and a
cow for sacrifice ; and if he is a " small boy," he may also be
beaten. When we compare this penalty with that for having
relations with a wife's sister, viz., £2, though the action is
merely olas, the difference does not seem great. In the case
of incest with a sister the offence is usually dealt with by the
Eagbenle society (where it exists) ; if this is not done the
offenders become sterile or their children die (see p. 147).

In connection with these rules are found customs of
avoidance of a kind. A man may not see his mother, sister,
or mother-in-law naked ; he may not sit or lie on a bed with
his sister by the same father, though it is permitted in the
case of a sister of the full blood ; the place where his mother
lies down is sometimes mas em for him; elsewhere he may
sit on her bed, though not on those of other wives of his
father ; if he does so, his plans will miscarry ; to escape this
he must give something to the woman in question, that she
may ask a blessing for him.

The children of brother and sister by the full blood may
not lie down on one mat together.

The interpretation of rules of avoidance is usually very
difficult and these are no exception ; generally speaking, it is
clear, they apply to close relatives but not to those who, like
own mother and sister, have grown up in one house with a
man. It seems quite probable that avoidance is enjoined so as
to make incest a more remote possibility : but, as incest with
mother and sister are clearly recognised as possible, it is not
obvious why the rules with regard to them are not equally
stringent for the adult male, in view of the presumably
greater opportunities and smaller risk of detection.

The fact that avoidance between cross cousins is specially
enjoined suggests that, in some cases at least, avoidance is
obligatory in cases where relations were formerly permitted.

It is clear from what has been said above that adultery
.is not in itself masom ; a woman must, however, confess
before a child is born, or it will die ; before the rice is
harvested, or the crop will be small ; and before her husband
goes a journey, or he will be disgraced.

A widow is to some extent in the same position as a wife ;
she may not have connection with a man till she has washed
at the water-side, which is itself masom; a fine is payable
by her paramour to the brothers of the dead man and a
sacrifice must be performed, or the widow will die. It is not
quite clear how far we should interpret this on an animistic
basis ; the payment of a fine suggests that the widow is in
the same position as the wife of a living man and that
adultery is an offence against his property ; we find, however,
that no man may enter the widow's house unless his own wife
(or one of them) is dead, nor any woman whose first husband is
not dead. Similarly, a man who has committed adultery with
a woman may not eat bread or meat sacrificed to her husband
when he dies. If he does so, nothing can save him from
dying in consequence of his partaking of the food. Here
we seem to be in the presence of a different set of ideas,
-connected with an apparent belief in the contagiousness of

the death of a spouse ; these cannot, however, be applied to
explain the belief that the erring widow will die. Hence it
it seems probable that two different strata of belief are in
question.

( i ills in the Bundn bush are inasom to men; they have
a fence of etanke (elephant grass) round their house, and
the enclosure is also niasom ; a man who enters it is rubbed
with white clay and fined £4 ; another account says that a
man's belly will swell (from medicines used by the women)
and the edif>a (Bundu woman) rubs him with mafoi
(mashed leaves) to cure him.

Conversely, no woman is to enter a circumcision bush, or
she will lose her nose ; nor may a woman see newly circum-
cised boys. The woman who cooks for the boys must not
have connection either the night before or during the time
she is cooking, or the wounds will 1 >c long in healing.

A menstruous woman may not have connection with her
husband nor cook for her husband ; nor may she plant any-
thing ; she is masom even to male children; another
account says that her husband may sleep on the same mat
with her, but would not venture to put Ins hand on her,
though it is not mas am.

During childbirth, and for a period of from three to six days
after it, a woman is masani to men in some places, though
her child is not ; even her husband may not see her after the
child is born. Elsewhere any man may see her after she has
re-entered the house (birth takes place outside). No woman
even may be present at a birth till she has borne a child.

If sexual relations are forbidden on ritual grounds between
certain persons on account of their condition in life, they are
also forbidden on account of the relations of man with other
portions of the organic world, more especially the vegetable
kingdom. Continence is enjoined on people concerned with
the sowing and reaping of rice, or the planting and harvesting
of other crops ; and occasionally on those who have to do
with inanimate nature, such as makers of fish-traps and
workers in iron.

When the farm is 1 >eing cleared of hush, or hoed, a farmer
must practise continence the night before ; generally
speaking, no one who has ever had sexual relations may go
naked to a farm, and the prohibition applies especially to
women ; if it is infringed, the sacrifice to keep away the birds
and beasts is "spoiled," i.e., rendered nugatory, and the
animals will spoil the rice.

If a man cohabits with his wife on the eve of cassava
planting it will be bitter ; the same rule applies in the case
of potatoes, yams, and crops generally ; both sexes must
observe the rules ; if a woman plants ground nuts or koko
yams, and disobeys, all the husks or tubers will be empty ; and
all the kola pods will be empty if a man climbs a kola tree
under similar circumstances. When they are digging the
crop, the prohibition only applies to the first six days. The
same law holds good of palm oil and palm wine making.

Continence is almost universally enjoined before rice
planting, though in one case I was told that abstinence was
not recpiired, it was a no ma atu — "God's patience." The
rice is mas am before it is threshed, until a sacrifice is
offered, and another sacrifice is needed when it is brought
from the farm to the town ; in neither case may a man touch
it if he has not practised continence the night before.

In like manner the maker of a fish-trap and a blacksmith
must be continent before working.

Of general food tabus, apart from ^m'-totemistic ones,
which are dealt with separately (see p. 136), there are very
few. In former days eggs were forbidden. Vultures are
regarded as dead ancestors, who turned into them in order to
come back to the world ; meat is cut and thrown to them
and a sacrifice is not " good " unless vultures come down, for
God has not granted the request ; hence it is clear that
vultures are in as am, not as unclean, but as specially
favoured birds.

Generally speaking, secret societies keep their doings from
prying eyes, and it is generally recognised that Pgro, Kofo
and other societies are mas em to the uninitiated ; even the

corpses of members may not be seen by strangers ; and the
society house is equally sacred, though in one place I was
admitted to a meeting, which was quite uneventful.

The Maneke (Kabenle) society, which corresponds in
part to Poro, is specially protected by masam. No woman
is to eat when they are in the town, nor may anyone have
connection with a woman ; no woman may see the society ;
if she does, ceremonies are necessary or she will lose her
nose.

No one may roast palm kernels when the Asur " oath
medicine " comes to a town (see p. 80).

Just as no one may expose himself to the risk of being
cursed, so no one may risk being caught by " medicine."

Witchcraft does not appear to be in itself masom, but no
one should " remove another person's rice to his farm by
witchcraft with his eyes at night, if there is a boundary."
The witch, who is of course male or female, is caught by the
" medicine " and dies, confessing as he does so.

No woman or boy is to see a man suffering from a " bad "
disease, such as leprosy ; the Maneke society take him and
bury him in the bush. As diseases of this kind are often
regarded as punishments for wrong-doing, and the sufferer is
himself masom, the prohibition is readily comprehensible.

In curious contrast with the victim (see p. 56) we find that
all wanka (see p.. 60) are masam. So are newly circum-
cised boys, girls in the Bundubush, the boromasar, widows,
menstruous women, and paramount chiefs in the kanta.

Loko — Ritual prohibitions (kake) are of a somewhat
different type from those of the Timne, and are less easily
referable to fundamental principles. A mat tied at both
ends may not be carried through the town unless a leaf is
put on it ; no one may run through the town or carry a light
through a farm at night ; no one may pound anything in a
mortar at night nor carry a pestle into a house. Cooked
rice may not be carried to the threshing-floor ; a woman may
not bring a wet fishing-net into the town. A stranger must
not put his foot where they sacrifice, nor sit on a big stone

near the town, nor go round a big tree, nor pass an anthill
without putting a leaf on it. One stream may only be
forded by a man who removes his trousers ; a man may not
enter another unless he removes his cap.

Here, too, according to my informant, a new-born child is
k a k e.

Limba. — Kowanki. — Generally speaking, protective rites
closely resemble those of the Timne. even to the implements
and names ; the homoeopathic cure is also recognised.

Kasi. — As among the Yalunka, ritual prohibitions are
known as kasi, which suggests (probably erroneously) that
they are, or were, associated in the native mind with fines.
It is significant that adjacent tribes of different stocks
should have adopted this name ; it points to the fact that
ritual prohibitions, like satka, are a complex embracing
many different elements.

When incest has been committed, bush medicines are
obtained, and the offenders are washed " to make kasi come
out of their heads."

The terminology here, as in the case of sacrifice, suggests
that an alien idea has been adopted, but not fully under-
stood or assimilated.

IX.— DIVINATION, ORDEALS, etc.

Methods of divination are comparatively numerous, more
especially for the discovery of thieves and witches. In the
simplest form the thief is cursed : " I have lost and not seen
the thief. I give him to you ; hold him." Then the thief
and all his family fall sick.

The method commonly demands the use of a so-called " oath
medicine," seha or seah, usually made by diviners or mori-
men. They are said to have received upwards of £25 for
such a service formerly ; " medicines " are now obtainable in
two qualities, at £4 and £1 10s. In the Bombali chief dom
is a medicine called ansur (spear), which belongs to a
single family, and is inherited in the male line. A woman
of the IvQnte family is said to have caught the medicine in
her fishing-net ; a small hut was made for it, and the woman
dreamed that it was ansur and how it was to be used. It
catches witches and big thieves, and the victim " turns red."

Anyone who is carrying the spear " turns red," if rain falls
on him, and develops sores, finally losing his fingers and toes.
By " turning red " appears to be meant leprosy.

Palm kernels are not to be roasted in a town when ansur
comes.

Sometimes an accused person swears before a medicine
that he is innocent ; fire sticks are struck on the ground, and
the accused person curses himself and his children if be is
guilty.

When a man wishes to make use of asasa, he gives red
kola to the owner, who brings it to the required spot, and
puts it before the door with some powder; tben the man
who has need of the medicine takes a piece of stick and says
what crime has been committed, at the same time telling the

sasa to kill the culprit. After firing the powder the medi-
cine is taken back to its owner.

When a man falls sick, diviners say sasa has caught him,
and the thief confesses. The owner of the medicine is told,
and he splits a kola-nut, and divines by throwing it, to see
if it is his medicine that has caught the thief. Then the
owner gets mafoi (leaves soaked in water), puts them close
to the medicine, and strikes the ground with a stone, saying :
" If it is sasa that caught the thief, let the man be well after
washing and drinking mafoi." Then he strikes the sasa
with the stone and throws the stone away. Mafqi is also
sprinkled all over the house of the owner. A debtor can be
dealt with in the same way as a thief.

Another method of removing the curse is to stand before
the medicine, turning to the east, and declare that the
" medicine " must not harm the culprit again, as he has con-
fessed. Water is thrown on the " medicine " to make it
" cold."

When a man refuses to pay a debt, the creditor may
"swear," and the debtor will pay if he gets alarmed. The
medicine represents the chief who should have enforced pay-
ment of the debt. The chief must be warned before a debt
is collected in this way.

Another method of dealing with a culprit is to go to a
blacksmith's forge and tap together a hammer, pincers, and
am bo ro no (used by a blacksmith for straightening iron).
This, probably accompanied by a curse, causes the man to
blow like bellows. When the culprit confesses, the objects
are collected again and water thrown on them, the oath
being at the same time revoked.

Another method of divination is by ordeal. The suspected
person and the diviner swallow a fish-hook, which sticks in
the throat of the guilty person till he confesses. A hoe
is heated red-hot and licked first by a child, then by the
suspected thief ; the tongue of the guilty person swells till it
is as big as his arm. The diviner is said to make the child
immune by medicine. Water is put in a basin, and two

palm ribs laid across it ; the water is dropped into the eye of
the suspect, and it pains him so much, if he is guilty, that
he cannot open it (see p. 48) ; if he confesses, water is taken
from the other side of the basin and dropped into his eye to
cure it. In a variant of this all suspected persons have to
provide fowls, and the diviner drops water from a funnel into
the fowls' eyes till the eye of the guilty person's fowl bursts.

Eice may be cooked, to be eaten hot and nearly dry ; the
guilty person is burnt.

In some cases the diviner himself undergoes the ordeal. I
had occasion to observe the methods of two diviners who
made use of hot iron, and came to the conclusion that with
a certain amount of dexterity it should be easy to avoid
burns, especially as the temperature of the iron was low : it
was far from being red-hot. Not only so, but I challenged
the diviners to a trial, and undertook to test their methods
on my own hands, but in each case they declined the contest.

In the first instance, leaves (known as mafoi mo ban a —
big niafQi) were mashed in water, and the decoction
sprinkled on the fire ; the same mixture is sprinkled on a
farm to keep out witches.

Leaves were then squeezed in water. The diviner next
took a stone, saying : " I don't come to look for all the
country, but for one man," hitting the pan of water at the
same time. This was in order to exclude any offender who
had committed a similar misdeed elsewhere, and was not the
man the diviner was looking for. The chisel was dipped
in the decoction before being applied to the diviner's hands.
Then the diviner put palm oil on his hand, and passed a
small iron chisel over his fingers and the palm up to the end
of his thumb, repeating the words: "I am called. I don't
want to burn. If what I am called for is true, let this hot
iron not slide on my hand ; if it is true, let it slide."

The second diviner put a tablespoonful of palm oil into a
pot heated on the fire, and lighted the vapour ; a thick iron
ring was then dropped in, and the diviner, after dipping his
hands in the leaf decoction described above, removed the

ring from a flickering flame some thirty seconds after it had
been dropped into the pot. The ring was then dropped into
the decoction, but no hissing sound was produced. The
diviner's hands were quite wet when he took them out of the
flame, and it was practically impossible that he should have
been burnt.

The diviner, however, informed me that " for a guilty
person " the ring would be left longer in the pot, and no
doubt a judicious attitude in this respect is preserved. He
added that he frequently burnt himself in his youth before
he knew how to manipulate the iron.

The diviner does not necessarily undergo the hot iron
ordeal himself. A murderer might be thus tested ; he had
to hold the ring in his hand for five minutes.

A somewhat similar method is divination with ring and
banana leaf ; the latter cracks as soon as the hot ring is put
on it by the guilty person.

When the diviner uses knives, he is said to tie charms on
the handles in some cases. The suspected person holds in
his hand a piece of stick as big as a match, and says : "If I
am a thief, let the diviner be burnt ; if not, let him not be
burnt "; and then puts the stick aside.

Another method of divination described to me seems to
depend on some kind of automatism, but my informant could
not tell me how the guilty person was indicated. Oysters,
stones, small snails, etc., are put in a basin near a krifi, and
everyone can hear a slight hissing sound.

Motor automatisms are utilised to discover thieves. Any-
one — not necessarily a diviner — takes a fly whisk in his
hand, and it beats the thief till he confesses. Two young
boys put a pestle on their shoulders ; the diviner ties charms
on the pestle, which " carries " the bearers to the house of
the thief, and throws them down if they resist.

Conversely, it is believed that a man who steals from
certain people is unable to move from the place in which
he is, where he committed the theft, until his relatives
come and beg on his behalf.

G 2

A form of crystal-gazing is also practised ; verses of the
Koran are written on a prayer-board, and washed off into a
basin ; a boy with a white cloth over his head scries (gazes)
and says : " I see the king of heaven and the king of hell."
" What do they tell you ?" "They show me a man." " His
name ?" Then the boy describes him, and names the town
he lives in, and so on.

The loser sends to the town in question, and accuses the
thief. If the charge is denied, the chief visits the town, and
another boy scries in the presence of the thief.

A diviner utilises stones to discover the town from which
a thief comes. The people of the selected town attend, and
he names the house in which the thief lives, and finally the
individual man. He may also take stones in his hand and
rub them, afterwards putting them down in rows by
ones or twos. As he looks at them, he expounds what they
say.

He may also put down a keg of gunpowder with charms
about it, and the hide of a bush-buck near, with sand in it ;
the sand appears to be marked irregularly with the finger-
tips, and the marks subsequently interpreted. The diviner
is said to be able to make the hide "walk" without touch-
ing it.

All these methods, however, demand the use of " medi-
cine " or the presence of a diviner, and are out of reach of a
poor man. To take proceedings in forma pauperis against
a culprit, recourse must be had to the grave medicine. In
its simplest form a figurine is made on the ground, and a
katop tree planted, with the words : " If this person gets
children, I give you the children ; if he goes on a palm-tree,
he must fall and break his neck."

In a more elaborate case three graves were made, one for
the thief, one for the males of the family, and one for the
females. A fowl-basket was also put down, so that the
thief might everywhere be disgraced and flogged and treated
harshly, and that when he made a farm, birds might come
and take his rice (Plate IX).

Plate IX.

ATETTOT. Sec page 36.

SENA. See page 84.

According to another account, fowl fleas are needed in
addition to the basket, which is covered with a cloth.

In some cases at least, " medicine " is put inside the grave
with the words : " The person who did this to me, and I do
not know him, I give him to you, I give you his family " ;
then the medicine is taken out and the earth filled in.
Katap leaf is gathered and put on the top, and pieces of ant-
heap wrapped in kalolum grass are put at the head of the
grave. When the thief has been caught, the " medicine " is
collected and the grave dug up ; water is then poured on the
medicine inside the grave with the words : " Let it not
happen again." Then both medicine and ant-hill are removed.

A more elaborate sena, or seah, was made as follows:
In the centre was a grave with a mat and a bier on it ; at
one end was some banana fibre ; at the other a small tree
(dead) with thread or cotton wrapped round the ends of the
branches and the points at which they joined the main stem.
At the foot of the tree was an ant-hill with cloth wrapped
round it, and a snail-shell. One informant said that a
climbing rope, and a hooked stick, with two head pads
strung on it, were also put down ; but these were not there.
The climbing rope was certainly put down, however, together
with a palm midrib butt ; the snail-shell contained a stone,
to represent the krifi; by this means the krifi was "joined"
to the man who stole from the palm-tree.

The curse spoken was as follows : " Stealer of palm wine,
I do not know him, catch him, kill him." Medicine was
apparently used in the ceremony in addition to the objects
mentioned above.

Not far from this sena was another, put up by some people
who had been entrusted with a child for education, and
(possibly) pledged him in respect of a debt. When the parents
demanded the child, the people with whom he had been
living were obliged to pay, as he had been sold by the
persons into whose hands he had come. After paying head
money the guardians " swore " against the people in whose
hands the child was.

This sen a was at a fork in the road hut on the opposite
side to the second path, and on it was a pineapple plant
with the vertebra of a cow lying on it.

Divination is also employed to ascertain if a sacrifice is
acceptable (see p. 42). A krifi is warned twenty-four
hours before a bempa (see p. 67) is made, so that he may
not be absent. When the time has arrived, kola is split and
thrown ; if the flat sides are up, the answer is favourable ;
if not, the krifi is " begged," and another trial is made on
the same lines. If a second failure results, a third trial is
made, and the result is favourable if the kola is odd; this
is interpreted to mean that the krifi does not wish for the
whole of the kola, but shares it with the people ; accordingly
only half is left on the spot.

In the morning the bempa is brought, and kola is thrown
again in the same way ; but if the third trial results in odd
kola, the bempa is "not good," and the diviner will order a
goat to be sacrificed.

Limba {Divination). — To detect a thing a sebe (charm)
is put upon a pole carried by two men, and it leads them
straight to the thief.

A diviner also puts stones in front of him to represent
wali and dead people, and shakes small stones in his hands,
which he afterwards puts in a square, and divines from them.

To divine if a witch has gone to a farm, a few pieces of
ankap are cut and tied ; blood is dropped on them, and they
are buried ; if a witch has gone, what has been buried comes
out of the ground, and is found on the surface. This is the
ordinary procedure in making a farm.

DEEAMS AND OMENS.

Dreams occupy an important place in the theory of animism
as one of the sources of the theory of souls and spirits. It is
frequently stated that the dreams of people of low culture
are far more vivid than those of more advanced races.

This may be true of some areas, but so far as the attitude
of my informants can be accepted as a guide, it is not true

that the dreams of the negro are specially vivid, nor that he
attaches more importance to them than the uneducated
classes in Europe ; on the contrary, dreams are seldom cited
as matters of importance, and not mentioned with any great
frequency in march en. In a certain number of cases the
diviner is appealed to for an explanation, and, if necessary, a
means of averting the coming evil ; but more than once the
words " only a dream" have been used by my informants ;
and the inference is clear that they are not confused with the
waking life nor regarded as necessarily throwing light on an
invisible world. A dream of teeth falling out is explained, it
is true, by saying that bnsh krifi have come to play with
you ; and if a crowd comes and beats you in your dream, it is
faiige, a magical means of the Kofo Society (see p. 149) with
which they profess to kill people. It is also held that dead
people come to a man in a dream to warn or encourage him.

Dreams are more commonly regarded as omens without
any very clear idea of how they come to have significance.
A dream of death means over-eating; if you dream of
weeping you will laugh ; if a leopard seizes you in the bush,
your child will be a boy; a crocodile will mean a girl. To
dream of a house burning means that " medicine " has caught
someone.

Black in a dream is bad ; a white man in a dream is a
krifi ; but to dream of white, clean rice means the death of
a relative, and to dream of white shirting means that some-
one in your wife's town will die.

The procedure after a dream, good or bad, is often the same
as that adopted in waking life under circumstances resembling
those of the dream. To ward off evil, egg-shells may be put
on a stick and the satka (?) rite performed, after which they
are put on the roof of the house ; the dreamer should also
pray for good dreams.

On the other hand, if you dream of strangers bringing luck,
you should cook rice in the morning and give it away that
luck may come, doubtless as a result of the prayers of the
recipients of the rice.

Falling and flying dreams, so common with us, are also
known, but do not seem to have any special significance.
For some reason they are known as fan dreams (more ma
kate,me).

To dream of a snake means that a man's krifi wants to
come and play with him ; all people have their own krifi,
according to one informant, and some get rich if they see
them, provided they do not tell anyone.

If a small child says it has seen a krifi, the parents will
try to provide a sheep ; if a man gives a sheep to the krifi,
he must let it go and the krifi will kill it; if he eats of it
himself, he will die.

A certain number of dream omens correspond with those
familiar in English folk-lore ; a " spider " drumming in the
ear is an omen (kador), and means the death of a relative ;
to dream of a tooth falling out means the same, more
especially of an old woman past child-bearing. A curious
feature is the great definiteness of some of the predictions ', a
dream of deafness, not a common feature in dreams, means
the death of the father's sister ; of blindness, still more
uncommon, the death of the father's brother.

A dream of fowls held hanging down in the night means
that a wife's relative, will die ; of being near a large sheet of
water, that one of the family will die ; of being in water up
to the neck, that a " big man " will die.

Some dreams have special reference to twins, though twin
births are by no means common ; to dream of a person with
white beads passing in the night means the death of a twin ;
to dream of planting the banana (epnlot) means that a twin
or triplet will die, for when twins are born, beads are put on
their necks, and these bananas are planted for their special
use , if a man or woman eat these bananas, the woman will
bear twins.

It might be imagined from the number of presages of
death among ominous dreams and omens generally, that
death was ever present in the negro's mind, and that lie was
full of the gloomiest forebodings. In point of fact, the

mournful nature of the predictions is not peculiar to the
negro system of omens ; it is probably not very different
from what is ordinarily found in European folk-lore.

As a general principle of interpretation of events, one of
my informants laid down that if you see what is " very hard
to see " — i.e., an unusual sight — you are going to die ; and
this general principle is also common to many omen-
regarding peoples.

Some applications are so obvious as to be found univer-
sally ; a man who stumbles and falls must return from a
quest for money, for he will be unsuccessful. Other mishaps
of frequent occurrence, on the other hand, are not heeded by
many people ; an informant who said that knocking one's
foot and cutting it on a big stone meant the death of a
relative aroused some dissent among those who were listening.

In the main, omens seem to be drawn from the animal
kingdom: in the case of vegetables only monstrosities have
any significance, such as a pumpkin (a kali) growing with
the fruit upwards instead of hanging down, a calabash seed
producing both calabash and pumpkin.

If anyone sees the alisa (two-headed snake, said to be the
king of the driver ants) in the day, he or a relative will die.

Seeing anrof (litis nasicornis) in a tree or in the day, or
akande (a tree snake) on the ground, is also an omen of
death.

A bush buck or wild pig in the town is an omen of death :
" baboons" (probably chimpanzee) in the dry season mean
the death of an old man.

A porcupine or chevrotain seen in the day is a death
omen.

If you see the young of a green pigeon, a relative will die
in a day or a week or a year ; the young of birds are seldom
seen.

If a plantain eater (okuru) stands on the bare ground, a
relative will die ; it always perches on a tree.

Birds known as atompete and kaporam near a town
mean death.

Domestic fowls naturally give omens ; a hen crowing like
a cock in the morning means the death of a woman ; some
people kill the hen. If a hen crows several times, the owner
offers it anything it will eat and gives it away after praying ;
then only one person will die.

If a fowl hatches two chicks from one egg, one of the
family will die ; if a fowl dies on its eggs, the head of the
house will die.

If the akbot fish cries when it is taken out of the water,
a relative will die. A crab (kara) seen on land is also
ominous ; if a man eats it, he will faint several times, but
not die.

As with us, the ordinary cries of domestic animals are
recognised as significant ; a bull that walks bellowing round
the cattle kraal is an omen of death ; so is a yelping dog
that " crows like a cock."

Plate X.

^,v# / /m at .

X.— MARRIAGE.

Compared with those of the Nigerian tribes, the marriage
customs of Sierra Leone appear to be extremely simple. Only
one form of marriage — by purchase — is known ; and though
the wife may leave her husband, when she has borne many
children, on payment of one kola, her position corresponds in
reality to that of the bond wife (amoia) of the Edo-speaking
peoples ; for her children belong to her husband's clan and
remain his property, if she leaves him, though one informant
was of opinion that a wife divorced by her husband could
take her children with her.

I found no trace of any anomalous form of marriage such
as those described among the Asaba Ibo, where lack of heirs
may bring about a temporary matrilineal rule of inheritance,
or even inheritance by a man wholly unrelated in blood to
the person whose property is in question.

Such variations as we find in Sierra Leone marriage
customs appear to be confined to those features naturally
dependent on the age at which the girl is first demanded in
marriage or the relation of her father to the suitor.

Cross-cousin marriages and other special forms seem to be
unknown to the Timne ; and in one case I was assured that
most first cousins (father's brother's or sister's daughter or
mother's sister's daughter) were not eligible wives, though a
mother's brother's daughter might be chosen ; the reason for
this difference in the treatment of cousins I did not ascertain.
It is clearly not due to the rule of clan exogamy, now falling
into desuetude ; for both the mother's brother's daughter and
the father's sister's daughter would be eligible under this
rule ; and the mother's sister's daughter would be ineligible
only if she married a man of the same clan as the mother
herself.

This information was given me by a Mohammedan ,
another informant, also a Mohammedan, confirmed it at a
town distant several days' march, and added that the mother's
elan was not forbidden ; the rule cannot therefore depend
upon anv idea, whether newly introduced or surviving into
patrilineal conditions, that the mother's totem is a bar to
marriage.

Marriage between the grandchildren of two sisters, on the
other hand, is not forbidden.

Widows being a form of property, it is not surprising to
find that marriage with the father's brother's wife is possible;
it is less easy to explain why a man should wed his mother's
brother's wife or his mother's father's wife (not, of course,
his own grandmother); instances of both occurred in the
genealogies collected.

In the case of a widow (see also p. 127), when the period
of mourning is over, each woman cooks separately and brings
her food with the words, " I finish cooking to-day " ; she
gives one kola to her late husband's family and, bidding
them good-bye, returns to her parents. At night if they
want the woman back, each brother of the deceased sends a
message ; a sister takes the kola back, together with some
shillings' worth of tobacco, and asks for the woman ; she sleeps
one night in her parents' house and then returns.

It by no means follows that this custom is a reminiscence
of a time when a woman left her husband's family when he
died ; on the contrary, it is becoming easier now for a woman
to get her freedom, unless appearances are deceptive. If the
departure of the widow were the real explanation, the simple
recognition of the rights of the husband's family implied by
the payment of the kola would not be easy to explain ; for if
they were originally not recognised, and subsequently their
claims were acquiesced in, it is improbable that the payment
would have been so small as one kola. Either the right
would have remained unrecognised, or a larger payment
would have been made. It is far more probable that this
payment of one kola is symbolic, indicating that relations

with the husband's family are broken off; it is, in fact,
merely another form of the cooking rite and the verbal
declaration. It should not be forgotten that in some places
one kola is sent to the chief to announce a death in his town
or chiefdom.

As to the object of the rite, bearing in mind that the
purpose of most of" the ritual of mourning is to safeguard
the widow from the ghost of the dead husband or from his
malevolent intentions, it seems that this separation of the
widow from the husband's family may be merely another
means of deceiving the ghost of the dead man and ensuring
that she will not be troubled in her new marriage.

With a view of appeasing the dead man, sacrifices are also
offered to him by the second husband.

In some places it appears to be not unusual for a widow to
leave her husband's family ; and a payment of £1 is made in
such cases.

When a woman has left her husband, or been driven out
by him and goes to a new husband, he usually pays bride-
price to the former, otherwise circumstances determine
whether the parents repay the first husband or not.

He seems to have no claim when he has turned his wife
out of the house ; but his wife must leave behind what she
earned in the husband's house ; one informant thought a
wife could take such property with her. When the wife has
taken the initiative, the husband seems to have a right to
the money, but is sometimes too proud to stand upon his
rights, and will sometimes abandon them if the woman has
been a hard worker.

As to the right to the woman's property, there seems to be
a good deal of uncertainty ; some informants held that a
runaway could take what her parents gave her and her
husband's presents ; others that she can claim what she earned
(probably by trading) in her husband's house ; others that
her husband's ill-treatment gives her a right to her property
if she has been a hard worker, provided always that she has no
children ; others again that she will get nothing if she has no

child, but may get something as an act of grace if she has a
child, provided she has not given her husband reason to send
her away.

One informant thought that a wife expelled by her
husband could claim her children. But nothing supported
the view that this is a general rule.

A husband might "swear" before " medicine " if he did not
wish his wife to go ; then all her children would die.

It is easy to see the underlying idea in most of these cases ;
even the contradictory rulings as to the child-bearing woman
can readily be reconciled when we consider that the property
left behind is what is recognised as hers by her husband, and
what is given to her if she has borne a child is given as a
recognition of the service she has done her husband in this
respect, not because the article given was in any sense hers.

It seems clear that the question has arisen comparatively
recently and that there is no generally accepted rule. This
confirms what has been said as to the position of the widow.

Apart from marriage of widows or of a woman who has
left her husband, a by no means infrequent occurrence, a man
gets a wife either by making application for her when she is
a small child, or by approaching her when she is near the
age of marriage. The father may give her to one of his
friends, as a special favour, or the suitor may make use of a
go-between, who may be a sister, head wife, mother, father,
elder brother, or good friend ; the go-between usually deals
with the parents of the child direct, but may be conducted
to them in the first instance by another member of the
girl's family. The go-between is frequently the intermediary
in payment of bride-price.

As an example of the marriage customs of the Timne may
be taken an account given me at Eobunki near Mayosn.

When a girl is five or six years old the suitor takes kola
to her mother and the mother tells the father ; he also gives
cloth to the girl to make her well disposed to him. At an
early period the girl may go to stay with her suitor, who sends
back rice, a fowl, and four heads of tobacco for the mother.

The suitor interviews the girl's father and gives him four
shillings, after which the girl is promised. When the child
has grown up, the suitor's sister takes £1 10s. " to make
the child friendly " ; she interviews the mother's sister, who
takes her to see the parents ; the father receives the money
and gives some to the mother.

When the parents send to the suitor to say that the girl
is going to Bundu, the messenger takes one kola ; the
suitor tells his sister and provides four fowls, four mats, four
shillings' worth of tobacco, a " hamper " of rice and cloth.
This is handed over to the girl's mother's sister for the people
who look after the girl. He also provides for the girl a goat r
ten shillings' worth of beads, a dozen waist-beads, gold
earrings, cloth, a head kerchief, rice, and palm oil.

When the suitor is informed that the girl is out of Bundu,
he sends his sister with two shillings to say that the girl
should pay him a visit ; her mother's sister brings her r
accompanied by the suitor's sister ; the suitor informs his
parents of her coming.

In the night the girl goes to the suitor's room for an hour,
but cohabitation should not take place ; then she returns to
her mother's sister. When they go home, five shillings is sent
for the father, and four shillings' worth of cloth for the mother.

After the girl is out of Bundu a whole year elapses before
matters come to a head. Then the bride-price — £4 and eight
pieces of cloth — is paid; country cloth was formerly the
currency ; and even now it is said that if a man pays cash
only, his wife will not sit long in his house. The suitor's
sister takes this in the night because " in the morning, it
is not good to talk about marriage ; in the night every
thought goes to one place." In the morning she asks for
the girl.

The parents provide four mats, a sheep, four fowls, two
" hampers " of rice, a box of cloth, basins, fans, and a cup.
The mother's sister and father's brother act as conductors to
the girl and receive four bottles of gin and two shillings'
worth of tobacco. In the evening they announce that they

have brought the woman, and say they have said good-bye
to the old people ; the dowry is then enumerated, and the
conductors say they have brought the girl for the sake of the
suitor's " big people." If she misbehaves, he must report to
them ; if you warn her and she does not obey, her mother
will tell her that she is trying to shame her.

Then the girl is handed over to the suitor's sister, who
conducts her to his room. If she is found to be a virgin,
proved by the exhibition of the cloth, a dance is held, the
conductors receive presents and a sheep is killed in the
morning. Eventually " virgin money," from 6s. to 21s., is
paid to the mother.

When the conductors return they take cloth for the mother
and ten shillings for the father.

During the period before marriage the suitor hires
labour and assists the girl's father in farm work ; the cost is,
however, not heavy, as four shillings will secure the services
of twenty men or more.

If the girl refuses her husband when she grows up, the
suitor reckons all the payments and the parents refund the
money.

If the girl dies before marriage, it is usual for another girl
in the same house to be assigned to the suitor ; this involves
a certain amount of additional expenditure, mainly, it seems,
to satisfy the girl's claims.

If the wife visits her parents after marriage, her husband
sends one shilling's worth of tobacco to recall her ; she brings
back a fowl, rice, and palm oil.

If the husband dies and leaves no brother, the wife returns
to her parents with her children, unless he left property ; in
that case she remains in his house and takes care of the
property.

If the husband turns the wife out, she may take her
ornaments but nothing else, but the husband cannot claim
repayment of the bride-price (see also p. 93).

If another husband approaches the woman, she refers him
to her parents ; he sends ten shillings and three shillings'

Plate XL

worth of tobacco and asks if she has no husband. If the
money is not sent back he prepares to pay the price, which
is less than that paid originally. The woman comes to the
husband without conductors and he sends his sister with
twenty shillings as bride-price.

The parents send six shillings' worth of rice, two mats,
two bottles of palm oil and some fowls. They say she must
behave herself or she will be driven out again ; if so they
will refuse bride-price in future, and that would be shameful
for her.

If no price is paid and the woman simply lives with him,
he may keep her children, but if he does not treat the
mother well, they will leave him and become " children of the
street," i.e., follow their mother. If a daughter married, her
price would not go to the father unless the mother chose.
The children are really the property of their mother's father ;
but he may refuse to accept a granddaughter's bride-price, as
she may cause trouble like her mother.

The sons live with the maternal grandfather and work
for him, and he gets wives for them ; they could inherit
property from him, both because they work for him and in
right of their mother.

If a wife leaves her husband, the price is repaid unless she
has children. If she goes straight to another husband, the
latter is liable to a fine of £4 for adultery.

The customs with regard to virginity differ from place to
place ; a cassava leaf may be put on the rice of a seduced
girl and she remains with her husband instead of being sent
home for four days and brought back by conductors. The
seducer will be called on to pay " virgin money," and if the
parents dislike the man a fine of a cow in addition. If the
suitor is himself responsible, there is no palaver unless the
girl has not reached puberty, in which case he pays a fine
of £4.

Elsewhere the husband may claim £4 from the seducer
and pay " virgin money " from this to the father, who shares
it with his wife.

The girl must name her seducer; it is mas am for her
to deny it ; a virgin, it is said, conceives soon, and childbirth
is easy.

There does not seem to be any recognised bride-price ; the
amount paid depends on the position of the bride's family in
part, in part on the suitor's pocket ; the amounts named to
me have varied from £2 to £20 : in each case a varying sum,
£5 or more, would be required for " expenses."

It must not, however, be supposed that the wealth of a
family is necessarily increased by an increase in the price ;
the informant who named £20 as the price added that the
father and mother would send with the bride a cow, pots,
cloth, mugs, basins, spoons, brooms, mortars and pestles, and a
small girl as servant; this would naturally mean a considerable
deduction from the £20. In one case where the husband
paid £10, which he obtained from the earnings of another
wife for whom he had paid £2, a dowry of £40 was said (by
a member of the wife's family) to have been sent with her.
The marriage turned out unfortunately, as in three days
poison, administered by the other wife, carried off the bride.
The actual cause of the crime was not so much jealousy, as
a quarrel with the husband over the supply of water. The
criminal had been flogged for abusing the husband's mother.

Some people send fish with their daughter also, to be
placed in the stream, so that she can claim to fish there by
right.

A share of the bride-price is often given to the mother.

When any of his wife's relatives die, a son-in-law is
required to make certain payments, and ask for the return of
his wife, who goes back to her father's house. At the death
of a sister or brother he may take a present of £1, two
mats, and two pieces of cloth ; for the mother £2, a goat,
and a hamper of rice ; for the father the same, together with
ten shillings to console his mother-in-law. If the mother-
in-law marries again, he will continue to work for her new
husband, though he may perhaps not be of the same
family.

These duties of the son-in-law are incumbent on him even
though he has not yet taken his wife home.

If a girl refuses to go to her husband, a diviner is
employed in some places to discover if another man has
" coaxed " her.

In some cases the whole price is not repaid, in case
another girl can be found in the same family ; but this is
not the case if another man has been persuading her ; where
it is simple disinclination, only the bride-price is repaid;
otherwise all " expenses " and presents.

Some girls resist their conductors and are tied with ropes
to be taken to their husbands; they are called afam
abasibala, persons who hate marriage.

Some men refuse to ask for the return of bride-price when
the girl refuses to come to them : they say they " leave it
to God."

It seems to be recognised that the money of a wife who
remains with her husband is her own, and that if she hands
it to him it is a loan, unless she is willing to make it a
gift. In one case a woman, Kina, who brought up a young
sister by her own father, received the bride-price of the
woman's only daughter; as Kina bought a wife for the son,
the money was probably exhausted, but I was told that her
son received the balance and that at his death it passed to
his father's family, as his children died young.

If a husband demands money and does not repay, a woman
will complain to her brother and the brother will expostulate
with the husband.

If the wife dies, however, the rights of the husband may
be recognised, especially if he has treated her well ; he may
take half her property, if she is childless, the other half
going to her parents.

A wife can take her husband's money to purchase food ;
but she must inform his family before or after. A husband
should leave food for his wife.

Various causes are recognised as a justification of divorce :
idleness, theft, slandering the husband, or doing witchcraft

H 2

100

in the house. But these are regarded as among the ordinary
mishaps of married life and a husband cannot claim the
refund of the bride-price : any tines, however, that he is
compelled to pay unjustly are repayable by the parents. If
the woman goes to another husband, the children are his.

In sunic places the wife can take her children with her, if
her husband divorces her. Where a wife leaves her husband
voluntarily, the children of a second husband are the property
of the first husband unless bride-price has been repaid, or
she has gone to Freetown.

Adultery with a wife's sister may result in the wife being-
taken away: but she may be restored after payment of a fine
of £5 or £6.

Impotence is a good ground for divorce on the part of the
wife ; but the price must be repaid. Before the divorce is
allowed, however, a trial must be made, for it may be a case
of witchcraft ; hence a man's ill-success with his own wife is
followed by another trial with a woman who has no husband.

Sickness is a recognised cause of impotence, and some men
appear to be either impotent or inverts ; in one case that
was mentioned a man of thirty ran away the day before he
was to receive a wife from the chief.

Adultery in the case of a wife was formerly punished by
shaving her head and beating her, and for frequent offences
a wife might be handed to the chief to be sold. The
co-respondent is now fined £4, or more or less according to
the fancy of the husband ; a " good " man may be satisfied
with a pot worth four shillings.

Susu. — The bride-price appears to be less important than
in other areas. Sometimes a girl is given to a suitor in
return for work only. The work continues as long as the
wife lives. In Somaia, I was assured, the suitor's payment
is only a gift ; but this was hardly borne out by the state-
ment as to the payment for widows.

When a price is paid, the father may get one-fifth ; other
shares go to the mother, father's father and mother, brothers,
etc., mother's mother, and so on.

101

Cross-cousin marriage is the rule.

If a wife runs to another man, the chief may compel
him to repay the price to the original husband ; but the
children still belong to the first husband and she is buried by
her father ; if the man to whom she ran buried her, he might
be heavily fined. A widow goes to the husband's brother :
he pays 24s. to her family. Some widows, if not all, may
return to their own families and marry whom they please.
The properly of a childless widow goes to her own family.
An old widow may live with an adult son ; but she is given
as a wife to an old man, that they may pray on her when
she dies ; for they cannot pray on a husbandless woman. A
woman divorced by her husband also takes a "husband"
who will pray for her.

Loko. — The suitor gives a ring to the mother, one head of
tobacco to the father, as a preliminary, and goes in person,
alone. He shares Bundu expenses with the parents and
when the girl comes out she goes to her husband at once ; a
go-between receives her from her mother.

The bride-price amounts to £5 or £10 in all : but payments
seem to be continued even after marriage, if she bears
children, until the husband dies, provided the children
survive : if the widow goes to the husband's brother, he
continue- to pay.

A man may not eat out of one basin with his father-in-law,
nor sleep in one house with his parents-in-law; the latter
prohibition applies also to a woman.

Virgin money is paid, as among the Tinme. The penalty
for seduction is £5, the same as for adultery.

A woman who leaves her husband can take what she has
earned, as well as ornaments given by her husband.

Limba. — The marriage customs do not differ in any essential
particular from those of the Timne ; but sometimes the husl »and
is not formally introduced to the girl's family, or not until
she is of age to many.

Virgin money is payable and the seducer is liable for the
payments to the girl's family instead of the husband.

102

In case of adultery the husband receives from ten to
thirty canes of salt, and the co-respondent hands him a fowl,
which he may not eat ; in fact the husband's family, and not
the husband himself, should receive the compensation.

When a wife runs away, the husband can claim from the
parents only if she goes to another husband from her
father's house ; otherwise the matter goes before the chief :
nothing could be claimed in respect of a woman who had
borne a child.

MfShi

wrjni

W»...

[w>'Il<U] ...

i )iapa ...

faj.iliuil.il.,.

kunotu

ba'

la' ...

poentoq

kenya .

lonya .. .

ny<jmo<)

■
nguya

nkQFQ

■
■

■

■■ I

■.

I
I 1/ S |

■

■
■

■

wqul

paboki
Itqki

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.. kMlllnlii'

[„.!.]
[„.!.•]
[n.1,]

ngnnjm

adakt

i.liii. ti

ndokr

(

TUUt ... n-Lir.

ndognaa

i ■

probata? t* *

KqKANKC

l.nkn

MjJHDI.

awutamun (]>I:i
karebuiu ...

faninkara

vauinkara

komone .

mindQpqnkande .

Wntill' . . ,
hninpo, fnle

ink

... tela

,.,

kumns .

faje,]
lol;

lok

tamko

...

nomi

lalo...
demia

lalo...

tnamada . , m

beni ... ki

ii»-]iii;i . . lit

demia ... be

demia mbla be

nji-iu", \iiin. in

njemo
mbanya

'lt;nil:nli;iM

belakaie,

linlYiil.-rli

kaie,

Famusieba

Diamadi

I'H.iim i
mamaili

llJMll

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Ml, inn i

I'll.MIIYI

bimbo
kaiq

l.iiai'i ...

■
■ ■ . i . ' i j l ■- l . 1 1 (e i

lllllM. '_'.,],,. I \ I

biramiu u (e)
DimQgQne (y)
birankai ...

ke$<jnq

Qjl tig
kggQnq

bin

[1 ke;gQnD]

kllgpKj ■",'

kr^f nyalin

nioffo i '* father

fA< /■' ■■■ moth i

I l/.N ,

„,/.'

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/./.'. h ..': i '. hmband

husband's broth* >' ■ wifi
parents.. .

fathi /■'■. "''/> .

brother's wif I O.)

daughter's husband** pa

pauinkas
mbq

on'a ion i //■>■ i keke, miu

daiuffhtt ■'■ cAtfd ( 1/ S i keke, wan

fought ' rAt/d i m S |

daughter** fa band I 1/*. i . mbitaii

paninkas
daiujhtei - Auatom/I W.5.) pakomane

koina

h q I.. 1 1.

I- a

Yrlrlll.'

kqmoni
kqinqne

KulMMlir

Ink

inaiii.i-l.i
demia
i
lalo ...

lalo

lalo ...
lalo...
nyaha

demia

■■■

Ion] ■, • ■

Iouya

belakai*;

demia, mbla kaifj ,

Dtana ...

bunks ...
mamadi

g
litaimi

fetuQ ...

i odt^em.
ndqejena.
i ndQg/eiu.

bekoha.

103

XI.— KINSHIP.

At present three kinds of kinship systems are generally
recognised :

(a) the family system, which is the normal one among

European peoples ;

(b) the descriptive system, in use among the Semites,

in which relationships are exactly described, as
when an uncle, for example, is termed father's
brother, or mother's brother, so that no ambiguity
is possible ; and

system, in which, in its most typical form, found
in Australia and other places, the whole of a tribe
stands in (tribal) relationship to each member of
the tribe, and the same term is applied to all men
of a given tribal status ; so that, for example, a
man's own father is not necessarily distinguished
from the other men who might legally marry his
mother.

A more logical nomenclature would recognise two main
divisions, family and clan systems.
Under the former are included :

(a) the descriptive system, in which all relatives receive

names that show their precise degree of kinship to
a given person ;

(b) the system, in which, in the main, the terms denote

simple relationship, and indicate it with more or
less accuracy, but are intermingled with classifica-
tory terms, including under one head those related
through males and females, both as regards (i) the

104

parentage of the given person {i.e., father or mother),

and (ii) the parentage of the related person {i.e.,

whether related through father or mother) ; all

terms, however, indicate that the persons denoted

stand in the same degree of nearness or remoteness

to the given person ; thus " cousin " is always a

person of the same generation, if the word is used

accurately ; " cousin once removed " indicates the

relationship of persons in different generations of a

degree of relationship one step more remote than

uncle (or aunt) and nephew.

Finally we have (c) a classificatory form in which

(i) reciprocal terms are used between people of

different as well as of the same generation, and

(ii) the same term (non-reciprocal) may denote

persons whose status with reference to the given

person is not the same, e.g., wife's mother and wife's

sister.

Properly speaking the " clan " system is based on the

division of the community into two exogamous sections, and

the nomenclature, modified by matrimonial customs and

other social factors, is based on this fact.

How far we can trace any of the features of the family
systems to the same cause is open to question ; there is no
prima facie ground for maintaining a genetic relation between
(i) a system based originally on the separation of generations
and the distinction between father's brother's wife and
mother's brother's wife, to take only one example, and (ii) a
system in which generations are frequently classed together
and the same name is applied to the wives of the father's
and mother's brothers. The latter circumstance is clearly
due to the fact that both were or are eligible spouses for the
given person, if a male is in question, and this is a condition
that cannot possibly prevail in a dichotomous society.

It is at least equally probable that the social organisation
was not originally dichotomous, as that a dichotomous system
has been so completely subverted and reorganised, as to

105

contain features utterly irreconcileable with the original
basis.

In this connection it is important to notice that in America
the so-called " loose " organisation is well recognised and has
not, so far, been traced back to an earlier stage. Nor yet have
any traces been found of a primary dichotomous organisation
in West Africa, But it is clear that the presence of a num-
ber of totem clans, even with the rule of exogamy, would not
give us the same kinship system as a dichotomous organisation.
Prima facie, totemic exogamy with, possibly, a prohibition of
marriage into the mother's clan, would develop its own form
of kinship terminology.

The kinship systems in use in Sierra Leone are of the
family type, but so far classificatory that a number of kinsfolk
are included under the same name, e.g., brother, whose actual
kinship status is not uniform ; in one case, the father's father's
sister and her daughter were addressed as "mother" and
"sister." In Timne the father's brother's wife is yafet
(small wife) and the reciprocal is pabaki (boy) ; a boy applies
precisely the same term to his own father's wife, who
normally goes to her husband's brother, but sometimes marries
his sister's son, brother's son, or father's brother.

The same term, yafet, is applied to the mother's brother's
wife, and the reciprocal is pawos (husband) ; here there is no
doubt that the reciprocal represents the actual relationship ;
in two cases in my genealogies the wife of the mother's
brother was married.

If we turn to the term ntene (father's sister, mother's-
sister), we find the same contradiction in the reciprocals ; the
father's sister calls the brother's child pabaki, and there is
no reason to suppose that they could ever marry ; the mother's
sister calls the sister's son pawos ; the obvious inference is
that the sister's son can marry the ntene, but the genealogies
gave this no support. It is perhaps worthy of note that the
father's sister is known as nt^ne both to Susu and Koranko,
while the mother's sister is nga or nadogoma (mother), and
that in Koranko the term is reciprocal. Perhaps this goes to-

106

show that marriage with the nte,ne is forbidden and that the
Tinme extended the term to the mother's sister when marriage
with her was forbidden. At any rate the word nt^ne,
according to French authors, means " forbidden," and is the
name given to the totem.

The nse of the term yafet, for a woman who is marriage-
able under certain circumstances, is paralleled by the Mendi
terminology; nje wulo (small mother) is used of the father's
brother's wife, though she is certainly marriageable. The
simple term nje (mother) is used of the father's and
mother's sisters and mother's brother's wife, who are not
marriageable. In the same way ke (father) is used of the
father's sister's husband, and mother's sister's husband,
who may not marry their nieces, though ke wulo is
applied to the father's brother, who lies under the same
restriction.

In Bulgm the father's and mother's brothers' wives are la
(wife) with reciprocal po (husband), and the nephew is the
recognised second husband. The father's and mother's
brothers are kenya, and this is the M^ndi term for the
mother's brother ; it is worthy of note that the Mqndi
prohibition is regarded as of less weight in the case of the
mother's brother's wife.

It appears to be the Limba custom for the brother's son
to marry the father's brother's widow (yenina oyyt). The
mother's sister is namoye,t (small mother), but the reciprocal,
fati oyet (small son), does not indicate any custom of
marriage.

In connection with all those cases where the mother's
sister is termed " small mother," it should be remembered
that the death of the mother, in all tribes except among the
Me,ndi, permits the father to espouse the wife's sister, though
he may not do so in the mother's lifetime.

Finally we have the Koranko, who speak of the mother's
brother's wife as yanane (wife) with the same word as
reciprocal, according to my informant. This indicates a
custom of marriage with the mother's brother's widow.

107

There is no trace in the kinship terms of any custom of
marrying into an older generation still, but one case is
recorded in the genealogies in which a man married his
mother's father's wife.

Descent is reckoned in the male line, and there are no clear
traces of the existence of matrilocal marriage, though some
■of the birth customs (see p. 108) seem to suggest it.

108

XII— BIRTH, TWINS, CIRCUMCISION.

The birth customs are on the whole exceedingly simple,
the main feature of interest being the fact that the wife
appears to go back to her father's house for parturition and
has t<> be brought back by sending a present to the father and
mother : if it were not for the fact that the husband's sisters
conduct her when she leaves her husband's house a month
before the expected event, it would be natural to interpret
the custom as a survival from a matrilineal period.

Under the circumstances, especially as presents are required
from the son-in-law when the wife visits her parents on other
occasions, it seems at most a recognition of the fact that the
wife has done what was expected of her, and that thanks are
due in some degree to her parents. It should be remembered
that a present to the wife's parents is by no means a rare
ceremony, even when the wife remains in her husband's house.
If the present to the parents represented a repurchase of the
wife, we should expect either that the child would be found to
belong to the wife's family, or that there was a formal pur-
chase of it, or, at the very least, that some trace of matrilineal
conditions would be found in the customs of inheritance, but
none of these conditions are fulfilled.

A child is usually born in the bush : and after an interval
the wife comes to rokulu,at the back of the house ; when she
conies back, no man should see her on the road. The woman
may come outside, but the child must remain within ; it is
masom to bring it out, though some informants stated that the
child was not in any way tabu and might be seen at anytime,
even while the mother was secluded.

The husband's sister is sent to him to announce the birth
of the child and he prepares food and other presents for his

109

wife and the women who aided her : this may, however, be
deferred, apparently, until the return from the bush, if the
woman remains there for any length of time.

The husband can see his wife and child on the second or
any subsequent day, even when the child must not be brought
out before the sixth day, which is the date on which the navel
string is expected to fall. This points to a belief that the
seclusion is due, not to any danger from the child but to it
possibly from witches or bad krifi.

The cord is cut with a knife oretanke grass. The placenta
is simply thrown in the bush or buried near the cooking place ;
the cord, on the other hand, when it drops off, is sometimes
kept, but is more often given to the husband to bury with a
kola nut ; the tree which grows from it belongs to the child.
The kola tree should not be damaged, but injury to it would
not do any harm to the child.

In some places, when the child is to be brought into the
house, the father provides country cloth, rice husks tied in a
leaf, and a sheep's horn ; he lays them on the child and all
present lay their hands on them and they are placed inside
the threshold over which the child will be carried ; when the
child is brought in, they repeat the words : " You come, you
find us working, you must work ; don't be cpiarrelsome."

Elsewhere the formula runs : "Honour your father, honour
your mother, do what they tell you, do not do what you are
forbidden, help your father with farm work, try to get money."

When a child is born, a satka is performed w T ith cloth and
a cap made of it, that a witch may not see the head of the
child. Or a knife is stuck in the door of a room where a
child is born, probably for the same reason.

In some places a sacrifice is offered on the threshold at
birth ; a sheep's horn and country cloth are put there by the
father, who prays for the child. He also chews kola and spits
it on the child's forehead and head, and prays for long life
and fame for it.

Muslims soak rice in honey and put it in a mortar ; at
the first stroke of the pestle, the child's name is called, and

110

the child is brought on the veranda, where the ceremony is
performed.

When a woman returns to the house with her child, a
diviner must be consulted as to its health ; he may order a
gown to be made for it or a fowl to be offered with the satka
rite and then left in the house.

If the child falls sick, kola and water are brought ; the kola
is given to a stranger or an old man in the town ; the water,
in a country pot, is used to wash the baby ; and the same pot
must be used on future occasions.

The child's head is often not shaved till it can walk ; the
hair is simply cut with scissors before it goes out for the first
time, about a month after birth. The mother puts on new
cloth and a blessing is asked on the child ; the mother takes
it on her lap and the father cuts its hair or shaves its head ;
the hair, if the child is a girl, is kept in the mother's cloth till
the child grows up ; the child then plaits the hair with her
own ; if the mother dies, the father keeps the hair for the
child. A boy's hair is simply thrown away.

A name is given at birth ; sometimes a child is named after
a man, especially the father's father, or one who gives a
present to the women ; or a woman says, " That is my husband,"
and gives it his name.

If the name is given later, the father chooses among his
father, or grandfather, or his mother or sister, and gives the
selected name to the child ; " this is the child I have begotten ;
he will bear my father's name " ; the second child may be
named from the mother's side.

In Mohammedan areas a child may be named from the day
of its birth, e.g., Alakamusa ; a boy chooses his own name
when he grows up ; a girl gets her name in the Bundu bush,
but may also use her old name. When a boy joins Poro, his
old name is superseded save for burial rites.

If a foster mother is needed, a relative, more especially the
mother's sister, is the proper person to undertake the duties,
but any woman who has just given birth can do so, even if
her own survives. The child will help her with her work

Plate XII.

Ill

afterwards. Fosterage sets up a kind of kinship and is a bar
to marriage.

A child born with teeth is called ayina ; a woman buries
it, or any other monstrosity, at once ; a three-legged child is
said to have been born at Lungi in 1914.

When a child loses its first teeth customs are practised
which bear a strange resemblance to those of European folk-
lore. .In some places a child throws the old teeth on the
house and says : " I don't give my teeth to Mr. Frog, but to
Mr. Snake " (because the frog has no teeth). In another
locality, however, the formula runs : " God, here is the tooth
you gave me ; give it to Mr. Frog (Pa Roto) and let him give
me another " ; the child must then run away.

Tooth filing seems to be but little practised ; when it is
done, a palm midrib is put between the teeth and they are
cut with a sharp knife ; a man submits to it to make women
follow him ; when he laughs, all women see his teeth.

Body marks (matal) are also of small importance,
save as regards the marks of secret societies ; formerly
a woman, when her breasts were fully developed, received
some short cuts over the nipples ; another woman was the
operator.

Susu. — The father sees his child on the day it is born, and
puts in its mouth kola and " alligator " pepper, to " open " its
throat. Then a fowl is killed for the mother, who remains
in for seven days ; bread is then made with kola on the top,
and the child is named and its head shaved. The kola is put
in the ground, then taken up again when it has burst, and
finally planted with the child's hair. The tree belongs to the
child, but in the case of a girl, her brother, not her child,
inherits it at her death.

Twins are not seen by the father till the seventh day, for
otherwise he might die ; they have " two eyes." Bread,
100 kola, rice, etc., are sacrificed in the yard. If one twin
dies, they sacrifice to keep the other alive.

Triplets involve an even greater sacrifice.

The ceremonies are the same when a cow calves of twins ;

112

the cow may not be milked again till the calves are weaned.
The twin calves receive names like human beings.

Limba. — Two days after birth the mother eats palm oil and
rice given by the husband. The person who shaves the
child's head is of the same sex as the child, and names it
at the same time. The cord, which is said to fall in three
days for a girl, in six days for a boy, is planted with kola
and the tree belongs to the child, but no harm happens if the
tree dies.

When twins are born, the father kills six fowls on the first
day. A " doll " is carved if one twin dies, and it is kept near
the survivor and rubbed with palm oil and salt if the child
is sick. A fowl is killed to the " doll " on the day the child is
weaned. A woman who was a twin still keeps her " doll " —
a long staff — and rubs oil on it when she bears a child.

Twins and triplets seem to be not uncommon ; four cases
of the former were known in a town of forty-nine houses and
three cases of triplets, for which the evidence was less satis-
factory.

TWINS.

Over a great part of Africa, probably, twins are
regarded as monstrosities, and killed or exposed immedi-
ately after birth. There is no trace of any such attitude in
Sierra Leone ; the birth of twins is regarded as a joyful
event.

A typical account of twin ceremonies was given me at
Magbile. When twins are born outside the town, the
father's hands are bound for an hour, because if he is not
tied the twins are not " glad," and he cannot get much
money ; therefore he is " punished." Both the twins are put
into one fan, and the relatives of both father and mother
dance round the town. When they are brought into the
town, another rope is brought, and one hand of the father is
tied ; other twins make the " twin house" on the right of the
veranda, and the father's hand is loosed when the house is
finished.

113

The fence of the "house" is made of tagbese and q titi ;
inside are ant-heaps covered with white cloth (these are
krifi), and on the fence are hung the calabash rattles that
are used when twins are born.

The twin house also contains broken basins, short pieces
of tobacco, etc. ; this is twin money.

If the rites are not properly performed, husband or wife
will go mad. Certain " twin songs " have to be sung :

"Ngnle,, B a 1 i, Nenqo, oya, oya."
" Hail, Bali, hail."

As a rule, twins are carried round the town in a fan. For
this the father provides white beads, cowries, palm oil, a
fowl, and shirting; kaf emak, a fungus that grows on ant-
hills, is mixed with the palm oil and eaten by the father
and mother. The father is tied with cloth when they go
round the town. He must give his gown away as a present.

Male twins are called Bali and Sine (Seni) or Sana ;
females bear the names Seno (Suni) and Sento. An alterna-
tive name for a male is Kern. Apparently the names are
not always used. The child born next after a twin is 'Bese,
and twin ceremonies are performed in this case also.

Twins must not eat snail (which will cause crawcraw), nor
iguana, for fear of deafness, nor a fruit of a tree called
matiti, which is used for the fence in some places.

No one should strike a twin on the head, or his own neck
will become twisted. The twin goes at night and asks why
he has been struck, and turns the man's face to look at him ;
in the morning his neck is twisted. One twin can, however,
strike another twin.

When twins are weaned, women carry them to the twin
house, wearing katoto on their heads, and carrying with
them a rattle and a matchet. Eice, palm oil, etc., are offered,
and cowries are used for divination. All the women present
and the twins eat. The twins are asked what they like, and,
if they cannot speak, they select their preferences.

If a twin who is the first child falls sick and dies, it is

114

buried in the ashes in accordance with the rules for ordinary
children ; rice is offered in the " house," a dance is performed
as for birth, and mafoi is rubbed on the dancers. Katiti is
put near the grave.

A goat or fowl is sacrificed, but they do not lament.

If the twin is not the first child, it is buried in the
" house " if it is small, otherwise like an ordinary person.

Twins are said to be very fond of contradictions ; they
contradict each other when they are born, and are always
trying to get " separate minds." If one is dying, they take
it to the house and say: "Kanka kurum bak ; kanka
kurum tebak," etc. ("May God make you live long; may
God not make you live long," etc.), enumerating a long string
of contradictions.

When a twin falls sick, another twin gets leaves and puts
in the " house," and then squeezes them into water. If this
is dropped on the face of the twin, the child will live if the
water runs to its nose.

If a twin dies, a wooden image is carved and given to the
survivor to play with, though "dolls " seem to be unknown.
The mother keeps it till the child is full-grown. This image
is known as kobari (twin); it is kept near the mother's
sleeping-place, and the survivor will not fall sick. Bread is
rubbed on the image when the first of the pair dies, according
to another account, which suggests that the image is provided
before the death. The survivor is washed with mafoi.

Anyone who plays with the " doll " is liable to get twins ;
that means trouble unless they can provide the sacrifice ;
they may die or become blind if they cannot do so.

CIRCUMCISION.

Circumcision ceremonies are, on the whole, of a simple
character. The operator is called betieli or ayunkoli, and
he uses a sharp blacksmith's knife.

The boys dance all night before the day, and tie hand-
kerchiefs like women ; they are carried to the east road,

115

where a place has been cleared near water, and placed in a
row. Each boy has someone to support him, often a brother
by the same father.

When the operator is ready, the helper (an s em a) draws
the prepuce forward, and the operator cuts it well in front of
the glans, with a single sweep for a small boy or two cuts for
an older boy. The helper then puts the cut edges in apposi-
tion, and various medicines are put on. The penis is some-
times held up by the helper till the bleeding ceases. The
prepuce is thrown into the bush.

Among the medicines are the juice of a creeper, magbele
and ratQiik ; elsewhere berries, or possibly peppercorns, are
chewed and spat upon the wound, forming a deposit. Some
use banana juice to stop the bleeding, others epilpila,.
etgma, etili, ekant, enana, and elabo.

After a time the penis is enclosed in a funnel of Qtili leaf
and tied upright with string ; palm midrib is tied between
the legs.

After six days the boys wash. They are carried from a
house (robirun or r ok a ma) in the bush to the water-side ;
they are in this house at night only.

As their general guardian in the bush they have an old
man ; an old widow (yabemba) past child-bearing cooks for
them ; no other woman may see them. They may not eat
guinea-corn (t a s u r), p e n i, cassava, t o g b o i o (millet), ground-
nuts, and pepper. In some places eggs are also forbidden,
but this was formerly a general prohibition, which has
perhaps survived in the circumcision bush. A father may
not wash his boy's sores, for if he had cohabited the night
before the sores would grow larger.

Certain animals may not be called by their simple names
by initiants in the circumcision bush. The word sanko-
mani must be put before them, though it is not masem to
use the simple name. Komani means "friend."

After the first washing, they can go about as they please in
the bush and wash their own sores, applying medicine each
time, every six days ; after healing is complete, they can

I 2

116

wash as often as they please. They wear long gowns
(runku).

The ayunkoli (circumciser) and semi a (attendants) may
not cohabit while they are employed in the bush.

Food may be prepared in the town by the boys' mothers,
and a sQma goes to ask for it, wearing a mask in some places.

When all the wounds are healed, in the morning the
se.ma takes them to the water-side to wash, and dresses
them in new clothes. The boys dance in the town all night,
still wearing the kunku; they may not sleep in a house,
but stay on the veranda ; women may now see them. A
masked man — in some places the ayunkoli — precedes them
when they enter the town; the mask (be nib a) is thrown
into the bush in some places. The women know that the
masker is a person, but do not know who it is.

In one place, if not more, in the south, circumcised boys
dance round the town when the boys who have been newly
circumcised are in the bush ; they spoil the oranges, bananas,
etc., of the fathers. When they take gowns to the bush for
the boys, they carry whips with them.

The initiants pass through the town from the east to the
west road, covered with a big cloth, and stay three days in a
hut made of palm leaves. The Eagbenle precede them on
the road. They wash every three days till the scars are
black. The dance on the eve of their appearance in public is
called begbula kobant (eating fragments from the bone).
They go round the town in the morning, a masker in front,
and the betieli (circumciser) washes them at two in the
afternoon and gives them mafni.

Circumcision may be deferred till as late as twenty-two.
An uncircumcised boy is not forbidden to have connection,
but he will lose much blood when he is circumcised.

The circumcision mask is kept as a rule, as also is the
palm-fibre dress. A second mask of sacking is sometimes
used, on which they spit chewed kola, to make it look
dreadful. This masker collects food, etc., from the boys'
mothers, and runs with them to the bush.

Plate XIII.

•S2

117

Another name for the circumcision mask is ayuke. A
specimen from Mapori, in the Kamalu chiefdom, with a fibre
and palm-leaf dress (eyanka), is now in the Cambridge
Museum of Ethnology (Plate XIII).

Limba. — Circumcision. — Although there is no direct
evidence, circumstances point to the fact that circumcision,
like clitoridectomy, has been introduced from outside. The
circumciser is known as betieli and a circumcised person as
(ba)sema. There is no obvious reason for the adoption of
the Timne terms (if, indeed, the case is not reversed) if the
operation was not introduced either by Timne men or from
the Timne area. The circumcision mask is known as
basampere, and no other masks are known.

Before the operation a goat is sacrificed, and the initiants
jump over it. This is done on the east road.

118

XIII.— BURIAL.

It is probably universal that, of all departments of ritual,
burial customs are those which show the greatest tendency
to variation from town to town or district to district. Apart
from sons-in-law, non-members of the family have little or
no share in the performance of the rites ; thus the traditional
element, which stabilises ceremonies in which people drawn
from a large area take part, is, if not lacking, at any rate
less prominent in funeral customs.

In Sierra Leone the varying influence of Mohammedanism
may have done something to intensify local divergences;
but, on the whole, in this, as in every department of native
belief and custom, Muslim influence has been deadening and
not vivifying. To this, perhaps, may be attributed the small
importance of burial customs in the life of a people already
singularly poor in ritual and corporate life generally, if we
except the customs connected with paramount chiefs, almost
certainly a comparatively late development.

There are a certain number of innovations in the rites
which may be traced to European influence ; chief among
these is the use of a coffin. The custom of covering the
body with sticks and leaves to prevent the earth from
touching it, which is specifically declared in some places to
be modern, is, on the other hand, probably Mohammedan in
its origin.

The first proceedings after a death are to summon the
relatives to the funeral and to wash the body ; in the case of
a male, the washing is done by male relatives, in the case
of a female by female relatives ; the age of the deceased
determines whether a brother or son or corresponding female
relative undertakes the task.

119

After washing the body behind the house, it is usually
rubbed with oil, dressed in good clothes, a white gown being
specially mentioned by some informants, and sprinkled with
scent. Cloth is put under the body ; in non-Muslim parts it
may be of any colour.

The grave, sometimes three feet deep, may be behind the
house or in the yard or along one of the roads leading to the
farms ; the diggers are sometimes relatives — brothers, sons,
or grandsons — in some places four men selected at random :
the body is carried to the grave on a bier or in the coffin, and
placed on the piled-up earth ; again it is a matter of local
custom who the bearers shall be, whether relatives or not.

At the bottom of the grave are put mats or sticks as a
general rule, sometimes banana leaves also. The body may
be protected by cross pieces of wood, sticks, leaves, or mats.
I found little or no trace of any custom of orientation ; but
in one case the body was laid with its feet towards the east.

In non-Mohammedan areas no prayers are offered at the
grave ; but in some cases the " old people " are informed that
a man is dead.

In some localities the body is taken down into the grave
by men standing in it, in others no one gets into the grave.
Grave-diggers and others have to wash either their hands or
whole bodies.

Before or after burial, mats, cloth and other presents are
given by the chief and others to the head of the house. The
lamentation goes on for four days in some places, in others
until an offering of rice has been made ; the widows, sisters,
daughters, sons' wives and female " friends " of the dead man
take part. A married daughter is bound to come, and her
husband should supply a victim ; until he has done this, he
can get back his wife only as a loan. In some cases the
son-in-law does not arrive till the burial is finished, and
announces that he has come to make a feast for his dead
father-in-law ; he gives cloth to the widows and hands over
the cow, which is sacrificed on the third day ; the son-m-law
is summoned to the sacrifice and the sacrificer announces

120

that the son-in-law has brought a cow in respect of the wife
that he received, that she may live long. Thereupon the
son-in-law asks for his wife, and she is handed over by the
head man or other person. In some cases the wife returns
with her husband, in others she remains a month — for the
lamentation.

There is considerable variation with regard to customs of
sacrifice ; a sheep may be killed the day after death ; or a
fowl may be killed, and served in a different basin from the
rice, some of each being put on the grave. In other cases a
goat is sacrificed, and the oldest man in the family names all
dead relatives and says: " So-and-so has gone on the same
journey"; after a moriman has killed the victim, the same
old man shares it out. In other cases a cow may be killed
without food being put on the grave.

In some places a lire is made near the grave for a month
and rice offered and left there : " this is your rice " ; some is
eaten, some put actually on the grave ; there is also a cup
for drinking water. A sacrifice is not obligatory, and only a
little cooked meat would be taken to the grave and shared
among the relatives who go there ; when the offering is
brought, old women clap their hands.

When a sheep is killed the day after death, a cow may be
killed on the third day : " We make sacrifices now that a
man is dead ; w T e who are left in the world must not make
his children cry ; you who are dead, a stranger has come to
you ; treat him well."

In other cases the fowl sacrifice is made on the third day ;
rice is put on the stone and the dead man addressed : " If
you are willing to eat, let the fowl pick up rice." If the
fowl eats, they go and cook ; the fowl may be killed by any-
one ; then fowl and rice are carried to the grave and the
words spoken : " This is your food ; may God give long life
to those who remain."

In another case rice is cooked two nights in succession and
put in the house of the dead man, which no one should enter
for some short time ; the rice is, however, taken out and

121

eaten the same night and a bread sacrifice made on the
fourth day.

The purpose of these sacrifices is not always clearly
defined, but it seems that where the food idea is not
definitely present, there is a vague idea of benefiting the
dead man, "that he may get a good journey." Possibly,
however, this is merely a weakened form of the idea once
or twice definitely expressed that the food supports the dead
man on the way.

It may be noted that in the case of a paramount chief
money is put with him, on the ground that he is going to meet
his ancestors.

On the other hand, the annual sacrifice is, at least in part,
for the benefit of the living : " when you sacrifice you get
blessing."

Graves are frequently scattered about irregularly (Plate
XIV), especially in the space between the two portions into
which many villages are divided. Occasionally a regular burial
ground is in use, though it does not appear that there is any
compulsion to use it. As it is supposed that husband and
wife buried near together will meet in Rokrifi, the explanation
of the common burial ground may rest on some similar idea.

The main difference between the Muslim and the " Timne "
ritual lies in the fact that prayers are freely offered by the
former for the welfare of the deceased ; the body is brought
out and all pray on it, so that, even if he has done evil, God
may take him to heaven. My informant added that you
pray for other people in order that they may pray for
you when you die.

In some cases, at any rate, the lamentation ends with the
burial, whereas in the Timne ritual it may go on for anything
from three days to a month, late comers putting a cloth and
a mat on the grave in each case.

Another Mohammedan feature, reported in only one town,
was that, after the washing of the body, it is put aside, and
the creditors of the dead man are invited to come forward to
receive their due. Then in like manner debtors are asked to

122

come and render what they owe or make a promise to pay, if
they cannot lay their hands on the necessary money. After
this, all pray for the dead man and beg that Knrumasaba
may " put him on a good road." After the burial there are
further prayers for forgiveness of the dead man's sins.

The burial of a woman differs in several particulars from
that of a man. If a woman dies before she has completed
the Bundu ceremonies, she must be "brought out" before
she can be buried, whereas a boy who dies in the circum-
cision bush is buried there.

The corpse is washed by women, who loose the hair and
plait it again in the ordinary way, and then rub the body
with oil and dress it. In some places money is put in the
hair, because if the dead woman has not performed the
proper ceremonies for her dead parents she will get palaver
and will need money to settle it ; if she was a snuff-taker,
tobacco may, as in the case of men, be ground and put in her
hands.

In some places the diba, or head Bundu woman, is
informed and receives a yard of cloth, to tie round her head,
and two red kola. The corpse is put on a bed in the middle
of the house and the women march round, singing : " You,
what we told you and you desired, you see it with your own
eyes ; you, you have no mercy, you leave your child crying.
Look at our companion whom they put on the bier." Each
woman takes grass from the thatch of her house and they
dance from right to left round the town, starting from the
dead woman's house. The esamburi (Bundu) drum is
beaten before and after burial.

The grave is dug by two men and two more take out the
earth ; if the number were uneven, one of them would die
soon. The earth first dug is put on one side ; clean rice is
cooked and put at the head of the corpse, which is told that
the grave is dug. Women then take up the corpse, a woman
carries the rice, and others the presents of cloth, etc., which
are not taken into the house.

They march round the grave and put a mat on the thrown-

123

up earth, which is levelled to receive the body. An old man
splits a kola nut and addresses the corpse : " I hand you over
to the old people," mentioning their names ; " I hand you
your child " ; then he throws the kola down at the head of
the corpse, and if the sections fall " even" (the sections both
up or both down), he takes the kola, aud the corpse is
lowered three times and finally put into the grave. It is
covered with a mat, and the first earth is then thrown in ;
old women usually fill in the grave, beating the earth down
with' their hands; the first earth dug in making the grave is
put first on the body, because the woman was used to this in
life, as it lay on the surface, and it will not press too heavily.

The grave-diggers and all the women wash before going
home, and the hoes are also washed.

Eice is cooked and, according to one account, sacrificed on
the grave ; according to another, simply carried there by the
women to provide the corpse with food on its journey. In
other places no food is actually put on the grave, but kola is
planted at the head, which will grow if the woman was not a
witch ; if it grows, a fowl is killed and rice cooked ; the
relatives say they are bringing food, and the feet and liver
are put on a leaf with a handful of rice and placed on the
top of the grave.

The Muslim custom is to sacrifice on the third, seventh,
fourteenth, and fortieth days ; the Timne have no stated
times.

When a wife dies, the widower sends a present to her
parents by the hand of a woman. They come to see her and
may carry her away for burial ; the husband would then
provide mats, cloth, rice, etc. He should not see her corpse,
just as in some cases a widow may not see her dead husband.

If the husband is going to bury her himself, his brothers
and sisters are summoned ; and, if necessary, word is sent to
the parents to ask for information ; for if her mother has
died before her and not received any sacrifice, the daughter
may not receive any sacrifice till her mother's rites are
performed ; then the sacrifice must be offered in the presence

124

of the husband, and he tells his dead wife what work he has
to do that he may have peace and health.

An old woman takes the husband to the water-side and
until then he keeps the clothes he wore when his wife died.
After the washing he puts them off, as a sign that he and the
woman are separated.

There are some curious customs with regard to the burial
of children ; it is of course a normal thing for a family to
lose children in infancy, but if by chance all should survive
to manhood and womanhood, these customs would still be
carried out, where they are in vogue at all.

The first child that dies in a family must be buried in the
rubbish heap wrapped in leaves and raw cotton and perhaps
a single mat. It should be noted that a witch is also buried
without a cloth, on the ground that otherwise she would
come back and trouble the living further.

They do not lament for the child, which is buried by an
old woman ; the mother goes with her and is washed later,
together with the clothes used by the child. This washing,
called ambiliha, is to prevent the sickness of the child
from remaining in the mother's body ; the same name is
given to the washing of the widow ; the word means
" sorrow." The mother's hair must be loosed and plaited
again, and on the night the child is buried she must have
connection with her husband. This last detail suggests, not
that the child is regarded as an evil spirit or possible enemy,
but that there may be some idea of reincarnation, though
there is otherwise no trace of any belief in it. The object of
burying in the rubbish heap may in that case be to disgust
the child with its surroundings and cause it to return ; the
custom of burying the second child on the veranda is in
harmony with this explanation.

It seems, however, on the whole more probable that the
burial in the rubbish heap is intended to deceive in some
way the witch or evil spirit that is believed to have caused
the death of the child.

A mother and child are not buried in the same grave ; but

125

a child's grave is near those of its relatives, that they may
look after it in Rokrifi ; the grave of a grandfather or grand-
mother is specially suitable. A baby is buried on the
veranda that it may not be soaked with rain.

A suicide is buried without sacrifice : impotence was
formerly a frequent cause of suicide.

Certain diseases involve special methods of burial, or a
special location for the grave, frequently in the bush. A
person with smallpox must be buried in the bush by people
who have already had the disease ; witches are sometimes
buried in the witches' bush, but with only a single mat and
no cloth. A person killed by lightning is also buried naked.
Anyone who lias suffered from large sores should be buried
in an ant-hill by those who know how to cure such sores.
An epileptic should be buried near water; it is mas9in to
inter him on land. A person burnt to death must be buried
on the road or the town will burn ; a person who dies of
snake-bite is buried at the entrance to the town or the snake
will come in ; if a leopard kills anyone, he must be buried
across a river, or the leopard will come into the town.
Anyone who dies of leprosy is buried in water and medicine
is sprinkled over the house. According to information given
to Schlenker, the Timne had some form of embalming
but he gives no details. He also states that a slave might be
buried with a rope round his neck, the other end of which
was tied to a post outside the grave ; he would then belong
to his original owner in Eokrifi (see p. 44).

Apart from the washing obligatory on grave-diggers and
mourners, there does not seem to be much fear of death or of
the dead ; it was stated by one informant that the Timne
feared the earth of the grave, while the Muslims said it was
good. Occasionally the name of the dead is tabu, and a
child who names a dead father or mother must sacrifice
under penalty of falling sick ; this custom, however, appears
to be exceptional, as no difficulty was found in obtaining the
names for genealogies.

As regards the widow the customs vary a good deal. In

126

some places she remains in her husband's house, in others a
house is assigned to her by the head of the family.

Four days after the husband's death the parents of the
widow in some places come to ask the husband's family to
return her to them ; but presents are offered to them and
they are told that the sacrifices have yet to be made. As a
sign of mourning she wears white, and the brothers of the
dead man also tie white thread on her neck and cords on her
wrists ; she continues lamenting till these are removed. In
some places a widow is not allowed to work, in others she
can please herself; but she seems to be free in all cases to go
about at will. She can even visit her parents, provided she
is " carried," i.e., conducted by a small boy ; but she must
sleep in her late husband's house or the house assigned to
her, as the case may be.

This is perhaps an exception to the general rule, for an
old woman and the sister's son of the dead man are usually
in charge and one informant expressly stated than no man,
save this sister's son, might speak to her. Possibly, however,
the informant who spoke of the small boy meant the sister's
son, for the latter, who sleeps on the threshold of the house
they are in, goes in front of them when they go out. He
wears the gowns of the dead man, and is clearly his
representative ; in some cases the widows are told that he is
their husband.

A widow who runs after other men is regarded as wanting
in love to her dead husband and told to return to her parents.

The period of mourning varies from fourteen to forty days
for the Timne and is terminated by a ceremonial washing ;
the sisters of the dead man, or the old woman in charge of
the widows, should accompany them ; if the sister's son goes
too, he waits at a spot half-way to the water-side.

The thread and cord are removed before washing and the
widow is asked to name the man whom she wishes to marry ;.
in some cases the brother of the dead man can claim her, in
others she is free to choose, but her children must remain
with the brother.

127

For the washing, they sit in the water and are rubbed
with leaves ; the old woman takes their old clothing and the
suitors provide new garments after being informed of the
woman's choice, and send it to the water-side. In other
cases the brothers provide the clothing, but this may be only
because they can claim the widows.

When a widow returns from the water-side her new
husband brings a dance to meet her and she goes straight to
his house ; a cow is then killed or sacrificed, with the
words : " Our dead brother, may God take him to heaven
and make his children healthy. May peace be in the house
of the new husband." If, however, the new husband should
have relations with the widow before the purification by
washing, he may have some trouble in getting her, and have
to pay a sum of money.

When she marries a brother, he looks after the house and
children of the dead man and all the property is in his care.
He will buy wives for the sons and take the bride-price of
the daughters ; if the second husband is not a brother, he
shares the price with the widow and the dead man's brothers,
who will assist him in bringing up the children.

The cow appears to be shared among all persons present ;
but in some towns each suitor kills a goat, of which he does not
eat himself, nor does his new wife; the explanation given is
that he is too glad, but this is probably an explanation sug-
gested when the real meaning of the abstinence was forgotten.

When the widow strongly objects to the brothers but has
no choice, she can hand the children to the chief in some
places, and then return to her parents ; if there are no
children, her people must refund the bride-price ; if she has
no relatives, the chief can refund the money in order to
release the woman.

In some places her family bring a sheep and kola to offer
to the dead man with the words : " We bid you good-bye for
the marriage " ; the relatives must hand the kola back if
they want to keep the woman. If she returns to her parents
the full bride-price is payable by the new husband.

128

Muslim customs differ slightly from these. The widow
wears charms that she may not see her dead husband ; she
puts on slippers, for she may not walk on the bare ground
under penalty of falling sick. For fifteen days they stay
in the house and do no work ; they are, however, allowed to
go out under escort to wash. At the end of this period
notice is given to the women's families and that of the dead
man ; a sheep and rice are brought and the women are taken
to the water-side ; when they return they have resumed
their ornaments.

When the dead man's brother sacrifices, the widows also
lay their hands on the victim.

A widow gets from her parents all her dead husband used
to get, and gives it to his brother, " to say good-bye to the
dead man " ; " it is as if these things belong to the dead man."
Each widow cooks ; and the food is put on fans bought for
the purpose ; rice and meat are dished and carried to the
dead man's sister's son : " we have finished cooking to-day."
Then they eat some of the rice and their parents give a
small present to the parents of the dead man and ask for
their daughter. The parents should not give her to another
husband until they have complimented the dead man's family
and taken them a present.

A widow should, in point of fact, marry in the dead man's
family ; but if she does not do so, her father gets the price ;
a brother of the dead man might get a small present also.
The second husband offers no sacrifice.

Another informant said that widows called on the name of
God for three days and then sacrificed and got white clothing.
They washed every Friday and sacrificed again on the
seventh day after the first sacrifice. On the fortieth day an
old widow took them to the water-side.

In some places, after the agbili abura (washing of the
widow) the clothes and sandals of the widow are hung on a
small dead shrub by the side of the path, probably where
the road forks, with four logs round it ; this is called
ambe.se (four-square). The widows dance all night in the

1'l.ATK XIV.

GRAVE UNDER A TREE (TIMNE).

susr crave. Seepage 12!).

129

fudia (house of mourning) before they go to wash; and
leave their mourning clothes on their way hack from the
water-side.

Susu. — The customs do not seem to differ in any marked
degree from those of Timne Muslims. But for a man the
grave faces east and for a woman it faces west ; my
informant said that a woman's face was turned " down "
towards the going down of the sun, but this is probably not
to be understood in a literal sense.

The grave is usually outside of the town and the bier is
frequently left upon it (Plate XIV) ; but a small child maybe
buried in the yard : bread is sacrificed and prayers are offered
that it may get a "good angel" (maleke).

As a sign of mourning sons shave their heads and women
plait their hair high. All wear white at a burial.

A widower turns his clothes and cap wrong side out for
three days and then washes " in moriman's writing."

Loko. — A man's head wife sits at the head of his bed and
stretches his limbs when he dies ; then she looses her hair,
stands up and falls down, and finally runs about the town.

When the body is put down near the grave, kola is thrown,
and if it splits open with both sections up or down, the omen
is good and the dead man will do no mischief : otherwise the
kola must be thrown again.

A widow sees her husband buried and is secluded for four
months. She then washes and chooses another husband, who is
informed by a sister of the dead man. The dead man's brother
can claim her ; but if she objects, he will release her ; in that
case bride-price is paid to her parents by the man she
chooses.

Gold is put in the mouth of a paramount chief : but
otherwise there is no special ceremony, as might be expected
from the absence of mas am.

Children are buried on the veranda, but the first child is
put in the rubbish heap; it is "a sacrifice of the family."
If it were buried in the ordinary way all the other children
would die.

130

Black cloth is tied over the eyes of a witch.

If a twin dies in infancy, an image is given to the
survivor: rice can be offered to it for the dead child. The
" house" is known, but burial in it is not recognised.

Koranko. — A man is hung from a pole and carried to his
own town for burial ; the joints are bent that they may not
be stiff. The grave is dug with a side chamber for a rich
man, and a stone is placed at the head, where a fowl and rice
are offered on the night of the funeral ; the bearers, not the
son, kill the fowl. Xo small boys should be present at the
burial.

The widow laments and takes kola to bid good-bye to the
family before the funeral ; it is given to the bearers, who
have to inform the dead man that she has taken leave of
him.

The widow wears white and must practise continence for
a whole year. She can do ordinary work but must not walk
out alone. At the close of mourning her clothes are hung by
the side of the road. She can marry a brother or go outside
the family if she prefers it ; in the latter case the brother
of the dead man receives the money through the woman's
parents.

Limba. — In former times bodies were buried in the house
or on the veranda ; now the grave is dug on the road or in
the bush near the town. The handles of the hoes are left
on the grave ; only grave-diggers wash, even though other
people present may have touched the body.

On the following morning a fowl may be killed ; it is eaten
by all who were present, including the grave-diggers. Rice
is offered to the dead man.

The victim may be sacrificed in the house ; one informant
said it was " to make the family live."

Then the kaboga (lamentation) is arranged, which maybe
a year or more later. Dancers (e,gbil kQro) come, dressed
in skins and masks.

The widow goes to the brother of the deceased among the
"Wara-wara Limba ; she ties a cassava leaf on her head, that

131

it may not pain her when she cries for the four prescribed
days.

Among the Safroko the old widows go to the brother, the
young ones to the son, but she seems in point of fact to
choose for herself.

K 2

132

XIV.— TOTEMISM.

A number of facts came to light which suggest that
totemism, somewhat overlaid perhaps by other prohibitions,
exists among most of the Sierra Leone tribes. It is true that
the name of the clan is not derived from the forbidden
animal, so far as can be seen, nor are the clans invariably
exogamous ; but the exogamous rule clearly existed in the
past, and in the main the prohibitions are of the totemic
type ; the only attempt to account for the prohibitions
asserted that they were acquired by "experience." The
main indication of totemism is the (rare) assertion that
animal and man are of the same family.

In general the totems, if such they are, appear to be of
small importance in the life of the people, if we except the
Kuruma and Bokoro clans. The existence of the clans is,
however, at once proclaimed in the Timne country by the
custom of appending the clan name to that of the individual ;
it is, in fact, on the way to become a surname ; at Magbile,
Seni Kabia's son was known as Fode Kabia, and four of Fode
Kabia's sons by his first wife also used the surname Kabia.

The following

is a list of Timne clans :

—

Clan (a buna).

Prohibitions.

Sanction.

1. Kamara ...

(a) alulu (soldier 1 rird)
(&)cob.

sore on arm.

2. Bangura ...

(a) crocodile.

(b) ran ink (electric
fish).

crawcraw.

3. Dumbwia

(a) §bunk (yam sp.).

(b) crocodile.

, (c) wirikalal (duiker).

foot cracks.

4. Sise

(a) crocodile.

(b) leopard.

foot cracks.

133

Clan (a buna).

Prohibitions.

Sanction.

Ture

(a) ran ink (fish).

(b) ebeli (bean).

(a) crawcraw or
loose teeth.

Kano

(«) akoma (lesser plan-
tain eater).
(b) ran ink (fish).

loose teeth.

K i n t o

emasaiyim ("like
yams ").

Bokoro ...

grave.

Kagbo

(a) a ban a (? weaver

loose teeth.

bird).
(b) ranink (fish).

10.

Sanu

(a) crocodile.

(b) kabal (eel).

11.

Sonle

(") kana (? civet).

(b) atiiiko (snail).

spots on body (if
eaten).

12.

Lata

kakunip (tree).

crawcraw (if used
for soup).

13.

Munu

(a) abana (bird).

(b) python.

spots on body.

14.

KQno

(a) col i.

(b) ranink (fish).

red spots on body.

15.

Worn bo ...

T "1

(a) a b a n a (" red bird ").
(&)alulu (soldier bird).

(a) skin red if eaten.

16.

Konte

(a) ranink (fish).

(b) katuhkele (bush
cat).

17.

Gbanti ...

afunku (small bird).

18.

Kuruma ...

(a) fire.

(diara )

(b) baboon.

(b) spotted hands.

19.

Kabia

(a) nut oil.

(a) nose gets black.

(b) rats.

(b) eyes painful.

134

Clan (a buna).

Prohibitions.

Sanction.

20. Fola

(a) monkey, (b) dog,
(c) tasur, (d) snails,
(e) bush fowl (not
to eat nor touch).

21. Sanko ...

(a) alJana (bird).
(6) crocodile.

22. Poli

akamu (iguana).

23. Lubu

24. Mana

25. Toronka ...

Alternative Names.

1. Kamara = B'araii = Mela.

2. Bangura = Tale.

6. Kano = Tunkuma.
9. Kagbo = Sanko.

Alternative Totems.

Clan (a bun a).

Prohibitions.

Sanction.

A. as No. 13.

B. abunkenke.

[B'aran]

C. python, crab, baboon,
anrof (snake).

D. Anbonborot (tree) for

poverty.

firewood.

E. crocodile.

A. leopard ; cob : but may
touch leopard skin.

B. leopard.

A. bush pig ; porcupine.

135

Alternative Totems — continued.

Clan (a bun a).

Prohibitions.

Sanction.

A. ranii'ik (fish); abana
(bird).

B. ebonk.

crawcraw.

A. (a) leopard; (b) magbel
(fish) ; (c) baboon ; (d)
arof (snake).

(a) skin becomes
like leopard.

(d) skin like
snake, if he
touches blood.

21 [Kagbai]...

A. elephant.

Timne. — In a certain number of cases the exogamous rule
held good ; but it is clearly in process of being abrogated, as
there were cases in my genealogies in which members of the
Kamara clan intermarried ; and it was more than once
expressly stated that by means of a sacrifice the " nearness "
could be overcome, especially if no other woman were available.
The suitor sacrificed a sheep and bread in the presence of all
the people ; in some places all ate ; in others, some asked a
blessing and handed their meat to others. Some say that the
suitor should not eat. In other cases no sacrifice was
needed ; but it is probable that the wife would come from
another village.

The respect for the totem is usually shown by abstention
from killing and eating it, or using the tree for firewood : in
some cases touching, especially the dead animal, is or was
forbidden ; Kagbo clan may give ran ink to one who is not
a Kagbo, but must wash hands after touching it ; eating the
fish, on the other hand, brings on the head of the offender a
penalty that cannot be avoided. Bangura clan avoids
leopard but may touch a leopard skin without precautions.
In some places it is not forbidden to kill the totem and sell

136

to others. If Kamara eats a forbidden animal, they tie a
yam leaf in a big leaf to rot and nib on the spots, which
then disappear.

A Kamara man who sees a living python will die ; and he
will not touch a dead one, though he will tell a man who can
eat it where it is to be found. He will not, however, allow
one to be killed in his presence and will offer money to
secure the release of a young python kept in captivity.
Probably all these customs are more or less in abeyance, for I
kept a python in captivity for some months and received no
offer from any Kamara man.

In the ordinary way the descent of the totem is patrilineal ;
but one or two informants respected their mothers' totems,
though the prohibition would not be passed on to their
children. A wife must respect her husband's totem when
she is pregnant or suckling a child ; she may not cook his
forbidden animal in his pots.

In many cases the penalty for breach of a prohibition
seems to be related to the forbidden animal ; thus, spots on
the skin and the leopard, red marks and a red bird, cracked
feet and the crocodile (skin), and so on. In no case did I
hear of any remedy for a breach of the tabu.

Two clans observe prohibitions of an exceptional nature.
Bonkoro may not see a grave ; when a member dies, old
people carry the body to the bush and dig a grave, on which
trees are subsequently felled. On their way back to the
town the grave-diggers may not look back. No offerings of
food are made to the dead.

The Kuruma family among the Timne are regarded as the
owners of fire ; when a clansman dies, fire is taken out of
the house before burial, for he must carry the fire with him
when he dies, or the whole town will burn. Another
informant said that fire should not lie lighted when a dead
body is in the house ; but women might have a fire in the
kitchen, for which a special place is assigned in a Kuruma house.

Xo one should point fire at a Kuruma, nor should fire be
too close to them ; when anyone lights a fire or a lamp in the

137

presence of a Kuruma, he must .say, " Excuse me," and the
Kuruma says, " All right " ; otherwise the fire or lamp will
not burn.

A curious quasi-totemic prohibition deserves mention
here ; the wank a eyebe consists of stones and sticks put near
a tree to protect it from thieves. It " catches " women more
especially, even when they are not the offenders ; it is said
in some places that certain families forbid fowls, and if a
woman eats a fowl, when this wanka has "caught "a man of
her family, her child will suffer from diarrhcea, which can be
cured by appropriate ceremonies.

It seems clear that in this form the belief is not totemic,
for the combination of protective magic and ritual prohibition
is necessary to cause the result in question.

Elsewhere another story is told ; if the eggs of the
atQmbeli (nightjar) are broken, women are "caught " by the
wanka, and the children suffer from diarrhcea. Here
apparently the respect for the bird is not associated with
particular families, and the resemblance to totemism is thus
diminished, though in form the belief is more truly totemic.

The most noticeable facts, however, about Timne forbidden
animals and plants are : (a) that each family, with few excep-
tions, has more than one, often bird or beast, fish and vege-
table ; (b) that different prohibitions are observed, probably
in different areas, by the same clan ; (c) that the clans are
highly localised, inasmuch as :

(i) Some villages may be found wholly composed of one

clan and
(ii) clans are found in some districts which are altogether
unknown in other areas ; this is of course a natural
result of patrilineal descent ;

and (d) that a forbidden animal (or plant) is by no means
confined to one clan, but, like alulu, akoma, and raiiihk,
may be common to four or five, usually in different combina-
tions with other forbidden animals or plants.

In all twenty-five clans were recorded among the Timne, of

138

which one had two alternative names and another one. In
the case of three clans — Sann, Kuruma, and Sanko, the latter,
according to one informant, the same as Kagbo — the forbid-
den animals were different in another locality ; in two cases
— Bano-ura and Konte — two alternative lists were given :
and in the case of Kamara, four alternative lists.

The fact that both Kamara and Bangura are among the
clans with alternative names suggests that there has been
some syncretism : and this view might seem to be borne out
by the fact that these same two clans are among those of
whom it is expressly affirmed that they are not exogamic
because " the family is wide." Against this, however, must
be set the fact that Dnmbwiais also non-exogamous if a sacri-
fice be performed ; and there is no evidence that Dumbwia is
heterogeneous.

The theory of syncretism, however, while it accounts for
either the alternative names of some clans, or their alternative
totems, can hardly be regarded as a satisfactory explanation
of both sets of phenomena. We can understand that clans of
the same name would amalgamate, and regard the difference
of totem as a minor matter, or that, given the same totem,
the difference of clan name, which does not seem to be
derived from the totem, would not be a bar to unification ;
but where neither of these visible signs of unity is present,
some reasonable ground must be found for the amalgamation ;
and this cannot be supplied from my data.

If, however, we examine the lists from other tribes, it is
apparent (a) that different prohibitions prevail with the same
name — Koranko Kuruma, for example, has no fire prohibi-
tions ; (b) that some names — Kamara, Sise, Konte, etc. — must
have passed from one tribe to another, either by migration of
individuals or because the name of an important clan like
Kamara tends to take the place of a minor group with the
same or some of the same forbidden animals.

The most obvious fact is, however, that the number of for-
bidden animals per family is much less than among the
Timne ; and where multiple totems are found, we may at any

139

rate suspect Tinme influence, even where the name is not
identical.

A certain number of animals are respected by more than
one clan in these tribes also. It is not unreasonable to sup-
pose that where Kaire and Mara amoug the Koranko both
respect the leopard, the former clan is a foreign product ; and
that they are on their way to becoming identified ; but even
if this is so we have no clue to the aliases of the Timne
clans ; for, as has been shown above, the forbidden animals
are rarely if ever the same.

Limba. — The original clan of Bumban was Konte, but the
exogamous rule brought in other families ; such was the
solidarity of the clan that a debt lapsed if the debtor could
not pay or borrow money from his " elder brother."

Koranko. — The rule of exogamy prevails ; an offence
causes the death of both parties ; but sexual relations are
permitted. The name is more important than the forbidden
animal. Koranko Kaire may not intermarry with Limba Kaite.

A man of Monko clan who is made chief wears baboon's
teeth on his wrist ; a chief of the Kaire clan sits on a leopard
skin and wears leopard's teeth.

The Kaire clan may not wear a red cap nor the red cloth ;
the Mara clan may not sit on a sheepskin ; Konte may neither
eat nor plant guinea corn.

The following are the totems of some of the other tribes ;
the figures in brackets show the equivalent Timne clan.

Limba (II).

Si.

Sanction.

Kamara(l)

Kagbo (9)
Konte (16)
Utari
Biyelimbe

spots.

hands turn white,
teeth fall out.

140

Si.

Totem.

Sanction.

6. Xinken ...I crocodile.

I soldier bird.

7. Ukoda ... col>.

-i

8. Oboli ... civet cat (neither killed

nor eaten).

9. Umun ... baboon.

Another informant gave d§ m bile, a fabulous animal like
a squirrel, as the totem of [Bi] Yedimi.

Fur some portion of the Limba tribe the number of totems
seems to be limited. The following lists were given me : —

(a) Susu Limba.

(b) Kafoko and

SONKO.

Totems.

Dema

Kam
Kemoin

Ninka

Deme ... ... (b) dembele (?no

kola).
Mun ... ... (a) (b) baboon.

Kemoin ... ... (b) huwoto (snake),

fo.
Kamboin ... (b) leopard.

The clans are exogamous.

Yalunka (III).

Siya.

Totem.

1. Kamara (1)

2. Dumbwiya ('■'>)

3. Sise (4) ...

4. Vatara (19)

5. Kwiate ...

6. Yatana ...

soldier bird.

anrof (snake),
crocodile,
monkey, baboon,
porcupine,
lion.

Plate XV

141

KOEANKO (IV).

Siye.

Totem.

1. Sise (4)

2. Konte(16)

3. Kururaa (18) ...

4. Kaire ( = Limb a Kaite)

5. Mara

6. Toli

7. Mnnko

8. Dau

crocodile.

crocodile, python, " guinea

corn."
arof ( '. bit is nasi cornis), hawk

[no tire prohibitions],
leopard,
leopard,
hush fowl, owl.
baboon, ebunk.
cricket.

Loko (V).

Xde.

Totem.

1. Kiowa (1)

2. Lobo(4)...

3. Yahipomo (9)

4. 'JBandea (24)

5. Burebo

ran ink, python,
duiker, crocodile, etc.

elephant (may not tread on

dung),
squirrel, baboon.
ran ink, owl.

The Koranko Kuruma have not the same masom as the
Timne. One informant said that he ate the fish called
magbel when he was young, and that the Timne Kuruma
believed they would get lumps on their necks if they did so.
This was not mentioned by any Timne.

The ritual prohibitions of the Koranko Kuruma are
(a) animals that die a natural death (probably of Mohammedan
origin), and (b) pig, monkey, and all animals that jump from
tree to tree, for God changed their ancestors into these animals
when he was angry.

142

It is noteworthy that the name for clan is the same for
Koranko, Yalunka, Limba. There is nothing remarkable in
the agreement of the two former names ; but the identity of
the Limba name, though the tribe is of an entirely different
linguistic stock, raises a suspicion that their totemism is
borrowed.

Delafosse (Haut-Senegal, Niger, I, 135-142, III, 108) gives
the names and tana of many Mandingo and other tribes ; of
these, seven are also among the Timne and Limba totems,
but only one of the few tana recorded is identical. Delafosse,
however, states that the tana are numerous, and vary for
each clan.

143

XV.— SECRET SOCIETIES.

POEO.

The Poro secret society is known in the Mendi, Bulani,
and Timne tribes, but there can be very little doubt that the
Timne have derived it from one of the other tribes ; for not
only is there a tradition to this effect but the limitation of
the society to the south-eastern portion of the Timne area
would make its importation from outside extremely prob-
able, even if no other evidence were available.

The fact that the chief of Poro, in the Yoni country, is
known as Bai Sherbro suggests that it is from the Sherbro
(Bulam) tribe that Poro rites were learned. This is also the
record of tradition. I was told at MatotQka that the Bulam
brought PQro.

A number of writers have recorded facts about this secret
society, chiefly in the form in which it is found in the Mendi
tribe ; on the whole, comparatively little has been published
about the Timne form. The older travellers who mention it
describe it as governing the country, and state that Poro
members go about seizing the property of non-members, both
of which are reported of the Timne as well as of the other
tribes. Little or nothing, however, has been reported of the
method of initiation — the boy's Po.ro, as it may be called, to
distinguish it from the Poro which is concerned with judicial
or other functions.

There is a clear relation between the chieftainship and the
Poro society, for the latter, where it exists, corresponds to
the Rabenle or Maneke Society of other areas, whose func-
tion is, amongst other things, to maintain the chief's
authority. So close is the connection that chiefs may be
spoken of as Iiabenle or Poro chiefs.

144

Bulam — A certain amount of information was obtained
as to Sherbro Poro. The names show obvious phonetic corre-
spondence to those of the Timne. Thus we find Taso
( = Kasi), Laga ( = Eaka), and Kamegotrun (? = kamebwi) in
the sense of Poro bush.

The bush is cleared, and a palm screen called kani put
at the entrance, the gate of which is known as kamela.
Dim omoi, twisted on poles, is the sign of the Poro bush.
Inside is a place where ordinary matters may be discussed,
and a second kani as a screen before the inner " bush."
There are small huts (baf e) for the candidates.

Taso is supreme in the bush ; he wears a high hat (tange-
tanga) of wood and rattan, with the skulls and thigh-bones
of former Taso, who are taken to the bush to die ; feathers of
the bulo (greater plantain-eater) also form part of it, and he
wears a dress (jambe) of fibre of dubwi (raphia vin.)
made into a net. Ked and white paint and soot are on his
face and arms; he wears dance leglets (bowi) on his knees,
and similar objects (bakumabenge) on arms and waist. He
comes out at times when Poro is in the bush, and members
attend him with tortoise shells, saying: " ndumbi wao"
('• Taso is come ").

Laga' is the messenger. He is concerned with seizing
candidates and the punishment of offences ; his face is
spotted like Taso's ; he carries a wooden shield (re) aud
sword. His followers are allowed to catch any fowls they
find in the town, but the chief redeems them with cloth and
rice. He addresses members by saying: "Heiiga Soko"
("Men of Poro"); and they answer: " m, m, m," "wain,
wain" (i.e., laughing); then all shout " hii." The usual
salutation is " Sokoti " — head of Poro.

Both Taso and Laga' are buried naked, wrapped in
leaves, in the Po.ro bush ; they are first examined and the
spleen inspected to see if they were witches ; if not, the gafe
(or krifi) comes out and cries in falsetto: "kongo yafe,"
"clean telly krifi."

When a boy is to be initiated into Poi, he may go volun-

145

tarily or be seized: an uninitiated person is called powa;
the gaf e takes him (so-called from the gafe or horn through
which he speaks). Seki (= Soko) follow the gafe, and they
halt just outside the town to shout: " he, he, he,," holding
their noses to disguise their voices ; the women escape to
the bush.

The gafe makes a sound "m, m, m," and a man
(ngahomwi) who holds a folded mat strikes it on the
ground. This is to represent the sound made when the
gafe breaks the head of the candidate (ngafe ngjwi
ngunga). The sijki take the candidate to the bush, and he
passes straight in.

The biri (marks) are made with a hook and knife, and
palm oil is rubbed on the cuts. As they are healing they
are rubbed with maize to make the keloids stand up. When
they are putting on the mark they say, "Opon" ("For
ever "), and the answer is " o."

Bunu is the wife of gafe, and when initiants go out of the
bush, they make sounds with their hands in front of their
mouths. Women keep out of their way. Women may be
warned by the shout, "Bunu a warn a," and they lie down
flat and cover their faces. Sometimes the}' say that Bunu is
hungry, and men go round to collect.

Before the boys leave the bush, on a moonlight night they
perform a ceremony. The night is called gafe yonlegbe —
day to beat gafe's belly, because he has eaten them all.

Their old clothes are put in a heap and tied tightly ; the
members drag them round the town and beat them. G-afe
waits in the bush, and the others say in falsetto : "batilihge
siane" (" Give us the people's children"). Gafe replies:
" o mqne, mQne, mone " (" 0, trouble ").

The boys are then carried into the town on men's
shoulders, with their feet held. Soon after this members
follow gafe into the bush and uproot trees or break off
branches, to represent the efforts of gafe to avoid being
detained.

A small palm-tree ( = gafe) is dragged into the town and

146

then into the bush. Before dawn the half -initiated hoys
(bangan) are taken to the uanganejta, and the hoys wash
behind the house with water fetched by the women ; their
heads have already been shaved in the bush, when gafe's
belly was beaten. No woman may see them till their hair
is grown. All the boys wear long caps, for they are very
young, and their heads are soft.

They sleep in the house three nights, and are then dressed
and put in the bari ; they may walk out accompanied by a
suki, and must carry on conversation through him. They
sleep three nights in the bari, and a woman gives them
their Poro names.

When they are to be brought out, Taso, who is the speaker
of the gafe, puts his foot out and holds the boy by the
hand ; the boy puts one foot on Taso's, who lifts him out
with his foot, saying: "6 pon 6." A young man just out of
Poro bush is called si mo.

The name given to a woman initiated into Poro is
mamboi. She is put in if she falls sick after learning
something of Poro secrets ; she stays eight days in the bush,
if initiation ceremonies are not going on, and lives in the
baf e (palm-leaf hut) in the night ; if initiation ceremonies
are being performed, she comes out with the other initiants.
A woman must die in the Poro bush and be buried there
if she has been initiated. Some account of Bulom Poro was
printed in the Royal Gazette of Jan. 1824.

OTHEE SOCIETIES.

Ra'benle. — The Ooenle (pi. Ilabenle) Society — also known
as Katinka Maneke, or Maneke — corresponds to some extent
to Poro. There is perhaps a certain amount of jealousy
between them, as each claims power over the other. The
Eabenle Society, however, is more restricted in influence and
numbers.

Their functions are connected with the election and
crowning of a new paramount chief, with the curing of
diseases caused by infraction of laws against incest, etc.,

Plate XVI.

YAU'XKA MAX.

YALUNKA WOMAN.

147

with the recovery of debts to some extent, and with cere-
monies to promote the growth of the crops. Members
appear to be chosen by the existing members of the society,
but take their places only after the old ones die ; they are
therefore rather office-holders than members of a secret
society. They are sometimes said to be the krifi of the
country and bempa in their society meeting-place, Turuma,
which was explained to mean " purifying stones."

The Eabenle complete the ceremonies for a dead chief ;
have then to shut up the new chief in the kanta. On
each occasion the mask is worn ; it is sometimes known as
aron etoma ; toma is said to mean "forbidden," but it
seems to be the name of a tree. They also take out the
mask when a member dies.

When a man falls sick for his misdeeds, the head of the
society (sometimes called Banekelema) takes rice to Turuma
for sacrifice. Leaves are squeezed in water and a wooden
basin held to the patient's mouth and then taken away, then
given to him again, and he drinks four times. The words
spoken are : " These are born in the world and these are the
old krifi ; so we come and ask you to give this man health
and long life."

Anyone who is sterile on account of incest is stripped and
taken to Turuma, where a dog is sacrificed and eaten by the
Rabenle, with the exception of the head, which is left for the
krifi. The pair are tied together and seated on the stones,
after which they make confession, saying they are brought
to the ancestor that they may lie no longer sterile. The
man may be flogged with whips ; the woman is washed and
rubbed with mafoi. An ill-doer in the society merely breaks
a certain leaf and chews it.

They come out after a fire and sing. "When they have
cleared away the ashes, they get leaves and sprinkle a decoc-
tion. If the house were rebuilt before this ceremony the
town would be burnt again.

When they crops are bad, they collect fowls and rice and
get their medicine, which is scattered over the farms. They

l 2

148

dance in the town two days and nights, and sacrifice an
animal when the ceremonies are finished.

Their messenger is Nemankera, who has a long wooden
beard on his mask (Plate V).

They claim to be able to " swear " and make a man's
joints stiff, to prepare a liquor and cause a Soko man
to die.

No uncircumcised man may see them, nor any woman, or
their noses will drop off. Even the shadow of Maneke should
not be seen. A man forfeits a red bead.

A woman who has thus offended is taken to Turuma and
seated on the stones under a tree. Ashes are strewn and her
offence recited ; then the woman confesses. A chicken is
brought, and her toe touched with it ; its head is pulled off
and thrown on the ground, and if it does not move the omen
is good. The chicken is eaten by children, and the woman
washes after being rubbed with mafoi.

In some places a woman is head of the society. She may
not eat food cooked by a woman who has had connection the
night lie fore, nor sit on the same mat as a young man who
has had connection the night before. Xo woman is to see
where she washes, nor to see her head, nor to eat rice that
was being cooked when the society comes out.

Tiie mask is called aroii (Plate Y) and the dress of palm
fibre natal ; it is worn for a dance in the bush at the death
of the chief. When they " swear," the head woman of the
society holds in the left hand bells called ewur. Torna
wood may not lie put on the fire by a member, or he will
burn himself.

All Kabenle chiefs have an iron object called kontqii,
which is used as a bell (Plate III) ; it is struck with a ring.
The kapor should not lick his thumb when he eats rice,
because the ring is worn on the thumb. liabenle chiefs are
called ambai na konteh; other chiefs are ambai na
qpcjse, chiefs of the elephant's tail, which they send with
a messenger to authenticate him.

A Soko man can be made chief and initiated into liauenle

149

if he gives up Poro; he pays the money to get mafoi for
him, and they take him to Turuma. The Kabenle then talk
to the krifi, and say they wish to make a Soko man chief;
then the orok takes the konteh and strikes it; bread is
sprinkled on the stones that represent the krifi, and the
candidate drinks mafQi in silence. He must not enter the
Poro bush again.

Kofo. — The Kofo Society is important in the Limba and
Sanda Timne countries. They claim to be able to perform
' : miracles," such as loosing themselves from ropes, cooking
at the top of a house without fire, passing through doors,
making themselves invisible, etc., and each member is said to
have a guardian who helps him.

They are said to be able to bring leopards and snakes from
the bush ; but I did not establish whether these are the
guardians. A Kofo member can cut himself and come out
from the house unharmed. They shoot at a candidate and
he dies ; he is then wrapped in a coarse mat and left on the
road ; if it is the west road, he returns by the east road when
he comes to life and vice versa.

Fire should not be pointed at members, nor water thrown
on them ; a non-member must not eat rice with a Kofo man
and then shake his hand because the rice is too hot, or the
.Kofo man cannot eat with him.

Kofo members are said to punish people by means of
fahge; they come like a dream and seem to beat a man;
when he wakes, his body is heavy. They may wait on the
top of a tree on the road, and as the man passes a
stick breaks and something drops in his eye and he sees
the Kofo people.

A victim goes to a mo rim an and gets a banana stump
at which he shoots with bow and arrows, and lays the bow
down at the foot of the stump ; this diminishes the power of
evil-doers.

When two fahge men fight, there is a great wind.

Katokodo. — The Katokodo Society claim extraordinary
powers like the Kofo ; but at a meeting of the society at

150

which I was present the only " miracle " shown me was the
passing of a woman's bone hairpin up the nostril.

The krifi is a stone and a small ant-hill; it is called
katagbempi and is represented by a man wearing a mask
with holes, surrounded by cowries and feathers, for the
eyes and mouth ; he holds a calabash before his mouth when
he speaks in the town and carries a bull-roarer (Qsip
Katokodo, the leopard of Katokodo) ; he is said to swallow
non-members. A four-foot-long horn of cow-skin is used as
a trumpet ; the members sometimes dance over crossed
sticks.

Another society named KambonbrjnkQ exists in places
where there are blacksmiths, but I obtained no details
about it.

In the central Sanda country I found a society called
Agbaia ; but this seems to be rather a co-operative society
which aids the chief to entertain strangers, and furnishes a
cow for sacrifice if a parent of any of the members dies.

Kumpamatir (see also p. 36) comes out when the rice is
growing, to protect it from witches, who fall sick when he
conies out and bleed at the nose ; they are also said to groan
like Kumpamatir.

Kumpamatir is said to live near water and to be called by
the beating of two sticks. If anyone stands so that the
wind blows from Kumpamatir to him, he will get " crawcraw."

Kaloko. — A society (?) of unknown purpose is known as
Kaloko ; they get qnepgl at night and tie all over a person,
with a bunch in front; they sing, "Kaloko beko";
"maionio Kaloko"; "Kaloko is coming"; "we beg
Kaloko.'"

Boibente is a boys' society ; they fix katap leaf in a
split stick and put it in their mouths to produce a peculiar
sound ; this leaf they call the krifi or boibente.

Kumunko. — Another young men's society is Ankumuiiko ;
it is simply a dance club and claims no powers of curing ; it
appears at harvest time. They appear at night and dance
and beat each other - ; when they sit down, no one must make

151

the slightest sound. A man represents the krifi, which is a
small hole on the east road called ankonto, with sticks
round it ; a man says " E, konioi" three times, and they
reply, " wunyu" The human krifi has a grass dress of
kalolum and carries in his hand a bull-roarer of palm midrib
with palm-fibre rope; the bullroarer is called "okrifi
kotoii santok," "the krifi that walks on his nails" (i.e., on
tiptoe, softly).

They sing before each door, holding the skin of the throat
with one hand and striking Adam's apple with the other ;
the chorus hums in falsetto.

The "father" is called Anduku ; they bempa at his
enclosure, which has sand in the middle. The sacrificer is
the one who initiates boys into the society ; they are beaten
with small whips. It is not clear whether Duku is the same
as the krifi.

Bundu. — Of the women's societies the most important is
Bundu, which is initiatory in its character. An essential
feature is the excision of the clitoris, which is, in other negro
areas, practised as a simple rite not associated with a secret
society.

A man who enters the Bundu bush may get elephantiasis,
or his belly swells ; he drinks mafoi and rubs it on his body.
He is rubbed with white clay and pays a fine of £4.

Eamena is a woman's society, but men may also join;
they hang long strings of cowries, and come out when a
chief is crowned. Like the Eabenle, they cure people who
violate masam. They have a special house in some places,
known as Eomari.

Earuba. — A society known as Earuba belongs to the
women of the Akwono family : ruba means "blessing" and
the function it fulfils is to sprinkle the farms with medicine
to get good rice; the eldest daughter of each woman becomes
a member. The graves of women who belong to the society
are near the house and have a scpiare of logs round them
and a pole stuck in the ground with three rags on the
sides.

152

The Kure Society is simply for dancing ; a girl joins at
live or six years of age ; she is dressed for a dance in palm-
fibre dyed black and wears rattles on her feet ; when they
have finished the course of four months' tuition they are
redeemed for £1.

Other women's societies are Aiyasi and Koliumho.
Aiyasi is said to wear cowry necklets and caps ornamented
with cowries. They rub themselves with black stuff when
they come out.

In the Bulam country is the Ankoi Society : no one may
hit a woman of this society on the head with his hand or she
will faint. When they dance, all doors are " like walls " and
they have to beg the woman who has '•' hidden " them all.
They can draw snakes from the bush to the house.

The Kinki Society is said to have been imported from a
country three months' journey away to the east, where only
women live ; each woman has her own house, and when a
man goes to the country for medicine he stands near the
water and breaks a stick or throws a stone, and she takes him
home at night ; they live together till she is pregnant, or,
according to another account, till the first child is born; if it
is a male, he is killed and used to make the Suka medicine.

Koranko. — Bundu was formerly unknown here, as
among the Limba. But there is a woman's society, called
SqgQre, which comes out at night in the dry season.

A man's society is known as Andomba; they use a
double gong and drum ; iron should not be pointed at this
society ; when they come out to kill anyone, a member is
said to be warned by their turning the sword handle back.

Komoiyare is the tutelar of the Kono Society, which
comes out at night and picks oranges, roots up cassava, and
consumes all the vegetables.

Loko. — The Kuba Society is known as Dubai a.

Limba. — In this tribe the Kofo and 'Bah bah Societies
are the most important.

Plate XVII.

153

XVI.— LAW.

Recognised offences were comparatively few, though more
numerous than among tribes more remote from civilisation.
Murder, rape, theft, arson, assault, disobedience or disrespect
to the chief or sub-chief, removing landmarks, firing the bush
too early and cutting palm nuts too soon, or injuring young
trees, are among the offences mentioned by informants.

One of the most serious offences was to knock off a
paramount chief's " crown," which might entail a fine of £80 ;
beating his drum was forbidden in certain areas only, and
was punished by a fine of £20 and a cow.

Among other offences may be mentioned : dying of snake
bite — the family was fined £8 ; dying of a fall from a palm
tree ; being killed by a leopard ; but in the latter case the
town was fined, because the animal must lie a witch.

Civil eases were dealt with by the sub-chiefs, or the
paramount chief, according to the importance of the matter.
The parties state their side of the question, and interminable
arguments go on over the smallest points. In the case
outlined below, the debate went on for nearly three days,
each side being mulcted by the two chiefs who heard it,
firstly 15s. for the summons and the answer, secondly 4s. for
subsistence money for the chiefs, and thirdly lO.s. hearing
fee, in all 29s. each. They also deposited £2 each security
for the fine to be imposed on the loser, the whole £4 to be
adjudged to the winner.

The case was an exceedingly simple one. Mela, a fisher-
man, had supplied sixpennyworth of fish on credit to Sedu,
who refused to pay when he was asked for the money.

Mela reported the matter to Seka, asking him to recover
the money; Seka received an axe worth Is. and a gown

154

worth 2s. 6(7. in satisfaction of the debt of 6d., but refused
to hand over anything to Mela and denied having received
anything, when Mela made enquiry.

Thereupon Mela again approached Sedu and was paid 6c/.
Sedu, however, said he had been summoned before Se,ka and
had already paid. Thereupon Mela replied : " I do not care ;
he refuses to pay me ; you can do with him as you please."
Thereupon Sedu summoned Seka before Bai Lanteli.

Instead of filing an answer to this summons, Seka
summoned Mela, saying that he must return Sedu's money,
as he, Se,ka, had no quarrel with him.

After a lengthy hearing the case was given against Mela,
on the ground that " you cannot crown a chief and then
uncrown him."

1 made more than one effort to understand the point of
view and to discover why Seka was able to summons Mela at
all, but without success.

Finally on coming into another chiefdom, I was told by
the chief, who had some reputation as a jurist, that the
decision was wholly wrong.

The remedy for such a wrong judgment is to carry the
case to another paramount chief ; he sends a present to the
original judge and he in turn sends the other party to the
case. The new judge reverses the appeal by fining the loser
and handing to the winner all the moneys paid in the case.

In the present case Mela had lost all his money, £3 10s.
or more, and was totally unable to travel to another
chiefdom to have his case reopened.

Murder. — The simple method of an eye for an eye was the
method of dealing with the murderer in the more remote
areas. The family of the dead man refused compensation ; the
murderer was led out and shot by the dead man's brother ; his
body was allowed to rot.

If, however, the murderer escaped and compensation were
paid in his absence, he might return later without
formalities.

A more civilised district could kill a murderer only without

155

the chief's knowledge ; if the chief heard of the case, each
party gave a slave to the king, probably as surety for the
suspension of the quarrel ; a Freetown girl was handed over
by the chief to the dead man's family and each of the parties
gave a cow for sacrifice, so that the country might have
peace ; a share of each cow was given to both parties.

The woman was called lu mo (trust) or selo (agreement)
and took over the forbidden marriage degrees of the family
she was given to. She might even take property if there
were no male heir.

A man who murdered his wife had to give a woman of his
own family as compensation to his wife's family. This sug-
gests the former prevalence of matrilineal descent ; but as a
precisely similar rule is found in Australia among tribes that
reckon descent in the male line, and have, so far as can be
seen, always so reckoned it, the argument is far from cogent.

A woman on whose account murder was done was handed
over to the chief, and he or his son might marry her.

If a woman killed a man, she was handed over and her
family fined in addition.

In some places an independent person was selected to
shoot the murderer, and hid on the road ; the murderer was
stripped naked. His own people buried him naked.

The person handed over to the family of the murdered
man might be a small boy ; he should not be a brother of the
murderer; he was known as kabol kaboma (sweeper of the
grave), and was adopted into the family. If a girl was
handed over, one of the brothers might marry her.

In many cases a fine was payable to the chief for the
blood spilt on the ground.

If one brother killed another, it was regarded as a family
matter.

If a body were found in the bush, the family (akur)
concerned buried it and sent people to shout at night, " We
have found a corpse," and enquire who the culprit was. If
no reply came, " medicines " were obtained and taken to the
spot where the body was found, and the same formula recited

156

with the addition : " if it is God who killed him, there is
no palaver : if not, you medicines must find the murderer."'
After a time, stones were taken to divine if the murderer
had been "caught." If the murderer confessed, his family
(akur) was notified and paid £-t to the chief, disclaiming
responsibility : this was paid to the dead man's family and
a sacrifice offered. The " medicine " was expected to kill the
murderer.

Homicide. — Where malevolent intention was absent,
responsibility rested as much on the family (akur) as on the
actual culprit ; the payment might be as little as £4, and
a cow for sacrifice, shares of which would go both to the
father's and mother's people of the dead man.

AVhen a hunter killed a man, he put his gun on the corpse
before he went to confess. He was often required to swear
that the matter was an accident.

A substitute might also be handed over to " sweep the
grave " in the case of accidental killing.

Theft. — A thief might be flogged or sold or his hands cut
off; it was commonly regarded as legal to shoot at a thief who
came in the night, though some were of opinion that a hue
and cry should be raised.

An habitual thief, male or female, would be sold by his
family (akur).

Theft from the family was less heinous than theft from
outsiders ; the offender might be stocked, even an elder brother,
for "aiyoka antase toi," "cassava is never too old to burn."

The " stocks '' were also a recognised punishment for minor
thefts from outsiders ; the actual penalty was that the thief
was fastened to a post on a head man's veranda.

Among small thefts were reckoned taking a goat, a few
sticks of cassava, a little rice, cloth, though rice-stealing
generally was regarded as a serious matter.

Kidnapping, stealing a cow, a number of goats, or a bushel
of rice, were major thefts.

Repayment of treble the value, e.g. three cows for one,
enabled the thief to escape the penalty of his deeds.

157

A thief was sometimes called kalolum, because he put
kalolum grass on his face as a mask.

Susu. — A murderer was shot or clubbed ; but no blood
should run on the ground or the executioner would die.

If the murderer ran, compensation (faxa nafuli) might
be paid ; a slave was handed over but not adopted, for
adoption was not recognised, though a good slave might be
made guardian to young children.

A woman who committed a murder was not killed.

A thief in the same town was chained and redeemed by his
family for £1, if he had taken nothing; otherwise the price
was £4.

A thief or troublesome man might be ostracised
(imasuyi iyitera), and a sacrifice was necessary before he
could be taken back.

Limba. — Murder. — A murderer was killed : no compensa-
tion could be accepted ; fighting might take place and one
informant had seen forty-three people killed, on one occasion,
in a town of ninety houses. If the murderer ran, his relatives
would be attacked and killed.

In case of homicide one cow was sacrificed, and one given
to the chief ; compensation £4 and one cow was paid to the
relatives. At Bumban a slave was paid, who took the dead
man's place and even took over his wife ; but according to
my informant he would not inherit property. The body was
buried by the chief.

Theft. — A thief is fined treble the value of the stolen
object ; but if it was of small value, one or two cows might be
demanded, or the thief might be flogged.

For the second offence the man might be sold, but if he
ran and his relatives paid £4, he could return.

158

XVII.— SLAVERY.

Slaves were divided into house slaves and ordinary slaves ;
the ranks of the latter were recruited from captives in war
and occasionally from pawns pledged in respect of a debt and
not redeemed.

A house or domestic slave (oliso) was born in his master's
house and could only be sold for a grave offence ; they should
be treated like sons and might get land from their masters
which their children would inherit, unless they were sold for
misl ichaviour.

Slaves are, however, usually inferior to freeborn in physical
development, and though the lot of the house slaves, who
alone survive under present conditions, is doubtless better
than that of ordinary slaves, they can hardly be considered
as equals, mentally or physically, of the rest of the
community.

In addition to the supply of slaves for home use, a
considerable export trade existed to the Susu country and
Futa, and one of my informants stated that as many as
twenty slave-traders were in Mabum at one time for the
purchase of slaves ; the ordinary price was £4, but £5 would
be paid for a pregnant woman. It was generally considered
that a bought slave was superior to one captured in war, for
the latter would never settle clown.

A slave was stocked for four days after he was purchased
and had to name his country and his parents ; bread was
sacrificed and he was sworn on it not to run away; but he
was not trusted for a year, and two years would elapse before
he went to reside in a slave village.

There was some difference of opinion as to whether a slave
could buy a wife for himself or not ; some said that he could
do so or might even marry a free woman, paying bride-price

159

for her ; but there was no confirmation of this ; in fact in
some places my informants declared that the slave could not
purchase a slave wife, but should receive her from his master;
in no case could a slave marry his master's daughter.

It was, however, recognised in some places that a slave
could purchase for himself a slave who would take his place ;
in that case the original slave became a confidential servant
of the master and was in much the same position as if he
were redeemed by his parents and remained, as sometimes
happened, a member of his master's household. It often
happened that a confidential servant acted as guardian to his
master's young children, but some informants were of
opinion that such a practice was contrary to usage.

It was generally held that a slave could not redeem
himself, even though he had attained some degree of riches
and did not work ; he might, however, give money secretly
to his parents to redeem him.

A master could free a slave by sacrificing a sheep and
handing the freedman over to his relatives or retaining him
as a friend ; the slave wife of a freedman would not alter her
status, though some thought that all the children would be
free. Some informants were of opinion that a freed slave
could marry his master's daughter, even though he was born
in the house ; in the opinion of others they were brother and
sister and could not marry. It was, however, clear that a
freedman could marry a free woman ; one informant thought
a freed slave would have to redeem his own children before
they became free; the freedman himself occupied the position
of a son and was joint owner with his former master's
children.

From this it is but a step to adopting an heir ; a childless
man could buy a slave and " put him in his own belly," so
that he became free : the brothers of the man could raise no
objection. His adopted son would, however, be heir to his
personal property only and not to anything that was due to
him from a brother's estate.

One informant said that to adopt a slave it was necessary

160

to make rice bread and rub it on him. A brother's daughter
is the proper wife for an adopted son, doubtless to smooth
over difficulties with regard to property.

In some places, however, adoption was not recognised, and,
in default of relatives, a chief or head man became guardian
of a man's children.

It was generally recognised that a man could marry a
female slave or buy one for the purpose of marriage. All the
man's relatives assembled and he sacrificed a sheep and rice ;
all laid their hands on the sacrifice and the sacrificer
announced : " My dead parents, I sacrifice a sheep because I
marry this slave of mine ; I hope I may get children ; 1 have
set her free." Thereupon the sheep's throat would be cut.
A freed wife's parents were not set free.

In another case the sacrifice was offered to the krifi after
the birth of the first child, and the food was dished separately
for the father's father's and the father's mother's families.

The sheep was sacrificed in addition to the bread used for
the male slave because of the children that were expected.

A slave got a farm of his own if he behaved well ; as his
master was responsible for feeding him, at any rate for as
many days in the week as the slave worked for him, his rice
was his own and he could utilise most of it for his own
purposes, though a tribute of rice was due to his master.

Although, in theory, a slave's property is his master's, my
informants were of opinion that the master should regard
himself as trustee for the slave's children.

A slave worked for himself on his free day or days,
which may be one, two or even three in some localities ; some
informants said a slave had no rest day unless he was sick ;
but this probably refers only to the first years of his servitude.
It was generally agreed that no master had the right to force
a slave to work on his free day or days ; hence the rule that
a slave had a free hand with the produce of his farm after
paying tribute to his master.

A man might give a slave to his wife, and her children
would inherit him ; he would follow the wife to a new

Plate XVIII.

161

husband, provided she did not marry out of the family ; a
daughter might, however, inherit such a slave and would then
be at liberty to take him to her husband's house.

Another informant, however, thought that slaves were
shared equally among the children, but would not remain
with the wives after the husband's death.

A runaway slave was reclaimed by a payment either to
the chief or to the man in whose house he was ; but in the
former case a time limit of a month was fixed.

If a slave murdered a free man, the family could claim two
or three slaves, who would be regarded as sons ; or might
receive a money payment, together with a cow for sacrifice on
the grave, aud a substitute who took the place of the murdered
man ; the substitute would inherit if there were no other
sons ; otherwise, according to my informants, he would get
nothing unless he received his share before the father's death.

A slave murderer might, however, be killed, if the family of
the dead man refused to accept compensation. In this case,
neither the dead man nor the slave was buried.

Susu. — The condition of slaves was not markedly different.
A man was free on Thursday and Friday and fed himself on
those days ; he was responsible for his wife's food and she fed
his children, till they went to their master, at the age of
eleven or twelve, if the woman was not in the same owner-
ship.

A slave could be freed ; and a man was at liberty to marry
a girl born in his house, though a house slave was so far one
of the family that a thief could not be sold.

162

XVIII— INHERITANCE.

Personal property is, over a great part of the Tiinne country,
very limited in quantity ; enquiries into the rule of succession
by means of genealogies were fruitless, for the simple reason
that informants had inherited little or nothing from their
fathers. As a natural result they were frequently unable to
formulate any clear statement for lack of personal experience.

It is clear that, generally speaking, a distinction is drawn
between personal property and family, or inherited, property.
The former descends to a son or an adopted son, the latter
goes to a brother or (elder) brother's children, or father's
brother's children ; but it is a general rule that an absentee
loses his rights, and that the eldest son by each wife is alone
entitled to succeed.

As regards personal property, all the sons seem to receive
a portion, but the eldest gets the largest share, and, provided
he is not himself in tutelage to a father's brother or other
guardian, is trustee of all the property ; he will hand over a
portion to his brothers when they marry, and also purchase
their first wives for them.

The age at which a man is held to be capable of managing
property varies within wide limits ; a capable man may be
regarded as sufficiently responsible at twenty, but thirty to
thirty-five is considered a normal age. One white-bearded
man of sixty, the second son of his father, informed me that
he was working for his brother, who had charge of the land
and kola trees ; he hoped to receive a share when he was old
enough. He was himself the father of three sons, the
youngest of whom was married and had two children. At
the present day the eldest son is accustomed to claim to
control the property, and apply, not always with success, to
the District Commissioner to support him. It is quite clear

163

that there are no hard and fast rules of inheritance, and this
fact should be recognised in administering the property of
natives.

A considerable amount of property may be held jointly,
and probably the practice prevails more especially in the
south, where trading is lucrative ; in the Sanda country joint
property hardly includes more than land and trees.

A member of one family informed me that four of his
father's forty sons had been entrusted with family capital to
the extent of £400, and in seven years, apart from drawings,
over £2,500 had been made. This was apparently a family
fund which could be drawn on in case of need.

Certain members of more than one family were specifically
declared to be wastrels, and to have been excluded, either by
the father or by the family, from any participation in these
advantages. In one family a long list of sons was given who
had remained unmarried, because they were too lazy to work.
If the eldest son is unsatisfactory, younger sons may get a
bigger share. In one place it was held that slaves might
attach themselves to the children of a wife who had been of
great assistance to her husband, even if their children were
not entitled to succeed by ordinary rule.

A Yonibana informant gave me the following account of
customs of inheritance in a family of brothers.

" A brother is guardian of his brother's children and
receives one-fourth of the property himself, not as guardian,
but because he helped {i.e., worked for) his brother ; this
would, however, only apply in the case of a younger
brother.

" If three brothers live together, and the two elder die
before the third, the children of the survivor will take his
property when he dies, plus one-fourth of the property of the
two elder brothers. The whole of the property is, however, in
charge of the oldest son, irrespective of whether his father
was senior or junior to the other two."

The precedence among heirs is as follows : The sons come
first, then the father's brothers of the whole blood, then those

m 2

164

by another mother. Daughters appear to rank next after
them, and then the sons of the father's brothers. But there
is some doubt as to the exact order, as no specific case occurs
in the genealogies. It is not unnatural that where there is
much property there are also abundance of heirs, as property
implies a sufficiency of wives.

Where no man of the same family can be found, the clan,
or the chief (or head man), take the property.

Where a daughter succeeds, her male children or those of
her sisters are the eventual heirs. As a rule, a daughter
gets cooking pots only ; but, in the case of a large estate,
money, cows, etc., may fall to her share. A married daughter
who succeeds in the absence of male heirs may bring her
husband to her father's house.

As a rule a daughter who leaves the town relinquishes her
share ; but they sometimes lease farm land to others for a
nominal sum ; if more were paid, it might be regarded as a
sale of the land, though native law does not recognise it as
valid.

Occasionally, succession to property through the mother
appears in the genealogies, in one case as a claim to the land
of the mother's brothers, in another of the mother's father's
father's land, but in both cases no nearer heirs were known.

In one case I found a dead man's house held in trust by
the widow's father's brother ; it was to be given to her second
husband. The first husband was, however, a stranger, and
the case does not indicate any law of matrilineal succession.
In a second case the conditions were similar, but the wife
was said to own the land, and the husband, who was still
alive but an absentee, was regarded as the owner of the
house.

It may be noted that even if the heir finds no property
coming to him, he is responsible both for the debts and the
obligations of the deceased ; he must, for example, purchase
wives for his sons.

Perishable property is shared among the father's brothers
of the dead man ; some of the rice is consumed by the

165

guardian and the children, some sown, and the produce
handed over to the children at full age.

In the case of live stock, some of the increase should go to
the guardian in recognition of his care of the estate.

If the dead man was paying bride-price, the bride would
fall to the father's own brother.

In the case of twins, each takes half the share that would
have fallen to an individual heir.

Adoption was recognised in certain areas only.

Susu. — Inheritance. — I recorded no genealogies and did
not test the statements of my informants, but they agreed
that the eldest brother by the same father takes a man's
property; then in succession his children, the man's own
sons, the males of his father's or mother's families, and finally
his own daughters ; but one informant put the daughters
next the sons and made them share with the paramount
chief, who took the house, amongst other things, and handed
it over to a stranger without payment.

A son succeeded at the age of twenty-five ; and the para-
mount chief, acting as guardian, would get him a wife before
then, who would pass to a family " near " him if he died.

Loko. — Inheritance. — No genealogies were recorded, but

1 DO

informants stated that the eldest son succeeded to his father's
property.

LAND AND TREES.

Generally speaking, land is private property, if we except
that which is attached to a chiefship or in some other way
held as a trust ; it descends in the male line, the eldest son
as a rule parcelling it out to his brothers, who become owners ;
in some places the father is said to make farms for each of
his wives, to which their children eventually succeed.

Land may be loaned, in the presence of witnesses, like
other property, and either a small money payment made or
a tribute of from half to one bushel of rice for a farm of
ordinary size. But if the chief applies for land he pays no

166

rent, though he, perhaps, gives some rice as an act of grace;
the matter is arranged through a sub-chief.

Land thus loaned may pass finally into the hands of the
borrowers it" they behave well and the owner does not need
the land.

Where land is borrowed from a relative, who may be on
the father's or the mother's side, property in it may pass in
comparatively few years.

Pawning of land is recognised in s< >me places ; a term may
be fixed, perhaps till the rice is cut, and £2 or more would
be payable to the lender, who would retain the bush till the
payment of principal and interest was made, and, in case of
default, if he wished, make another farm four or five years
later. A made farm cannot be pawned, though rice may be
sold before it is cut ; in this case the owner of the farm, not
the purchaser, reaps the crop.

In the neighbourhood of Freetown the rent for an ordinary
farm was stated to be one bushel of rice, some palm oil, a
fowl, and four shillings, to be paid yearly. Here, too, land
can be sold, and £4 would purchase a farm of ordinary size.
The same area would be pawned for £2 or less.

There is a certain amount of evidence that clearing of
virgin forest was held to confer ownership ; but as there is
no old forest left in the Timne area, the point is of no
practical importance.

Big trees serve as boundaries of large plots ; on the farms
sticks and rubbish are utilised to mark off each man's
property.

Round the towns are usually tracts of uncut bush, which
belongs to the head man ; it may be taken for house land,
but is preserved as far as possible as a safeguard against bush
fires spreading to the houses.

A woman who leaves her husband can claim to farm her
father's bush, if he has no sons.

A stranger obtains land, usually after a twelvemonth, from
the paramount chief, or, at the chief's direction, from his
host. He, and in some places his children, may be expelled

167

if there is any trouble ; but the grandchildren have acquired
the rights of natives — obviously because, as a rule, they are
the children of women of the district and cannot be expelled.

At the same time it is recognised that a wastrel or trouble-
some person can be pawned to teach him manners : this can
be done only with his own consent, but as he can be fettered
until he gives his consent, there is not much choice allowed
him in the matter.

The heir of landed property is the same as the heir to
other property ; the eldest son holds land in trust ; if there
are no sons, the elder brother of the deceased holds it for the
daughters ; if there are no brothers, the daughters can hold it
in their own right.

The chief holds (a) farm and house land as chief ; (b) farm
(and house) land as individual ; (c) uncultivated bush, such as
the "town bush" and bush held sacred to the krifi, and has
(d) dominium over the whole chiefdom, though he cannot
dispossess any individual owner at will.

House land is owned individually like farm land ; in some
places a son rebuilds his mother's house in his father's com-
pound when the latter dies : when he marries he builds a
house for himself, but returns to his mother's house at her
death. This course is followed only in the case of a woman
already old, who would not go to another husband.

The father's house is naturally occupied by the eldest son.

In general, trees belong to the owner of the land, unless
they are planted on strange land by permission. Palm trees,
however, are common property ; but no one can go on a farm
before the rice is cut, except the owner. A close time is
frequently fixed by the chief, both for palm nuts and kola.
Palm wine can also be procured from any tree after the
harvest. This freedom, however, is restricted, both in
respect of nuts and palm wine, to residents ; casual strangers
must ask permission and give a share to the owner of the
land.

In Mabum, where the Mohammedan element is very
strong, and a portion of the town are immigrants, all palm

168

trees belong to the owner of the bush, and no nuts can be
cut without permission ; but any owner retains property in
the trees on land he loans to others.

Permission is asked in some places under Freetown influ-
ence ; but at Magbile anyone may cut subject to a payment
of five heads to the chief ; the oil is extracted by the sub-
chief or head man, who keeps the kernels.

The only other tree of importance is the kola, the nuts of
which were worth in normal times 3s. 6d. per hundred.
Property in kola trees may pass to a daughter, and she sends
for the nuts when she wants money ; her sons succeed to the
trees and come and clear the ground round them.

Kola may be planted in the common bush or on private
land ; a seedling in " big bush " may be claimed by clearing
the ground ; as a rule a witness is required when trees are
planted along the road in the common bush, or at the water-
side.

Other fruit trees in which individual property is recog-
nised are lime, orange, banana and mango. Akent (Baphia
vinifera) is valuable as the source of piassava.

There seems to be a custom of sending oranges to the
married daughter of a family ; but, as a rule, marriage means
that a woman resigns her share in the family trees.

Koranko. — Land. — Customs with regard to land seem to
be entirely different in this tribe, for private ownership of
farm land is unknown — at any rate at Mabqnto, where my
enquiries were made — and anyone may take an old farm and
plant ground-nuts, though the former owner, who has had a
rice-farm for one year, can claim to say how much he will
reserve for his own use. House-land is apparently private
property, though anyone may take the site of a broken-down
house. A stranger who built on it would, however, be under
the son of the former owner, if the son chose to build near.

Trees. — Palm-trees are common property, save those near
a House ; orange-trees are also free to all, though apparently
the owner of a house can pick fruit from a tree close at hand
before the tabu is raised. Bananas are privately owned, but

169

can be declared common property in certain areas — e.g., on
the site of an old town.

Limba. — Land is mostly in private hands, save for certain
sacred places, chiefly bush and barren spots that cannot be
cultivated. On one side of Kabinkolo is sacred bush., which
may not be entered by women and uncircumcised boys ; on
the other side the bush belongs to the town. Land appears
to be scarce, as some people have enough bush only for two
farms, and plant rice and fundi in alternate years.

At Bumban a man takes the farm and house that belonged
to his mother, and younger sons get land from the eldest.
Daughters cannot transmit land to their sons.

Trees are the property of the landowner, and palm-trees
are no exception ; they appear to be scarce. The chief
claims a tribute of oil and kernels.

Other trees must be planted in the town or behind the
house ; kola and mango alone can be planted on the side of
the road, and kola is also found in the town bush and near
the water- side.

de£t.

Refractory debtors are dealt with by means of " medicine "
(see p. 81), by the Pqro or Maneke (Konto) societies, by
summons before the chief or by private justice, i.e., selling
the debtor as a slave.

A case was cited to me by a man who appealed to Konto
to relieve him of his debts ; when the Maneke society came
out, they appear to have gone to the debtor's house ; he
climbed the centre pole of the house and escaped, because
the members of the Maneke society were carrying sticks.
After jumping down from the house, he swam a river and
was finally declared free of debt ; but my informant could
not explain the process.

Another method is for the chief to loan the necessary
funds to the debtor, relying upon his power of seizing the
debtor or his heirs if the money is not repaid. It should be
remembered that debts are inherited like assets, and that the

170

absence of property does not relieve a man's heirs from
responsibility for his debts.

The creditor might seize a debtor and sell him, or a debtor
might sell himself in satisfaction of a debt, or pawn one or
more of his children, or pawn other property ; or, in substitu-
tion for a cow that he owned, take a bull, handing over the
cow to a third person, the owner of the bull, which he sold
to liquidate the debt ; this done, he endeavoured to procure
another bull, in order to recover his cow ; the object of this
procedure was to avoid selling the cow, which was more
valuable than a bull.

AVhen a stranger incurs a debt, the man who grants him
land is his surety, and, if necessary, the chief pays the debt
from the funds of the grantor.

One informant thought that a debt could not be handed
over in satisfaction of another debt ; but this opinion was
not confirmed.

A man might pawn himself or his children, but not his
wife ; the recognised sum was £2 to £4, but one informant
placed the figure much higher.

If the pawn died, the debt was not extinguished. If an
important man pawned his son, leopard's teeth might be tied
to his wrist, or a key in the case of ordinary people ; the
wearing of this was not explained.

A pawn was called s eke me kQiikoniuya. The term for
the loan might be only one year. A wife would return to
her parents if her husband pawned himself, and they might
redeem the husband.

A pawn was sent back to his father if he were lazy or sick,
and the debt, of course, remained; he might visit his father
for some time by permission ; if he worked well he might
receive a wife from his master.

A girl might also be pawned, but would usually be redeemed
at the age for marriage ; the master would not allow her to
marry a free man otherwise, though he might take her to
wife himself.

A child might be pawned at the age of seven.

171

If necessary, a man's brother would redeem a pawned
child without expecting repayment, for " if you get, it's his ;
if you get trouble, it's his.''

Animals were rarely pawned apparently. Cows formed
an exception ; the broker called on the owner to redeem it
before calving, or extra payment was necessary.

If a cow died, the body had to be carried to the owner,
who was notified if it were stolen or taken by a leopard.

Inanimate objects might also be pawned, and were at the
disposal of the pawnee ; a term would be arranged for
repayment, and the article forfeited if the arrangement were
not carried out. Damage to the pawned article had to be
made good.

Loans were made for no fixed term, and in the absence of
a definite agreement no interest was payable ; a small pay-
ment (rowanokum), however, might be given in acknow-
ledgment.

Security was not necessary, but the money was handed
over in the presence of a witness, who might be the lender's
wife. A surety (kabun) might, however, be called in, and
he received the money from the lender. The word kabun
means " beam of a house."

Where interest was payable, it might be 25 or 50 per
cent, per annum, or be payable only if the term passed
without repayment.

Susu. — Fawning. — A man could pawn himself and
extinguish the debt of £6* in four years, or he could pawn his
son and repay the debt before he was free.

172

XIX.— FARMING AND CROPS.

The most important crop is rice, of which many varieties
are known ; guinea-corn, millet, sesame, maize, cassava, and
ground-nuts (planted by women) are also major articles of
cultivation. Among women's vegetables may be mentioned
tomatoes (matamba), beans (elil), sweet potatoes (okro),
' ' garden eggs " (m a 1 u 1 a, j a k a t o, m a k o b q k q b o, m a k u n t,
etc.), leaves for soup (kabete, akimban), and others.
AYnmen also make swamp (potopoto) farms, which entail
less work. The return may be fivefold, and two crops can be
raised from the same patch.

Peni, a Digitaria species, is often sown in an old rice-
farm. It is sown broadcast, and cut in August ; they garner
it like rice, and dry it on a "fence " or "tree." When it is
dry, the grains are trodden out. There are no rites con-
nected with the cultivation.

For a large rice-farm thirty men and boys may do two
days' work in clearing the bush, and three or four men, a
month later, put the dried brushwood together for burning
in five or six days. When the rice is to be sowed, thirty
men may be needed for hoeing and the same number of
women for breaking the sods, each for one or two days.
Two or three boys watch for a week till the seed germinates.
A month later weeding will occupy seven women for four
days, the weeds being usually placed in the forks of the
stumps of saplings left in the ground.

The same stumps are used for drying the rice when it is
reaped. It is cut off short below the ear and tied in small
sheaves, which are afterwards (a) hung on a " tree" (a bant a),
i.e., a horizontal pole; (b) stacked beneath the guard- hut,
in which the boys sit, while the rice is ripening, to scare the

birds with stones and mud-balls slung far and wide ; and
(c) piled in small stacks (kamom), head outwards. If the
rains are very heavy, a house (ankor) may be built.

Before it is threshed it may be put for four days in the
abanki (a round bin of sticks driven into the ground), and
made tight with leaves, such as is also used for palm-nuts to
mellow ; then it is threshed on the robete, or kadir, mats
beneath it, and fanned to clean it of dust. The beating-
stick is called korump, the fan kot^me.

Some people tread out the rice.

In some areas it is the practice to leave the rice in the
fields ; in others it is brought to a granary, raised on posts, in
the town. In the latter case, if, as often happens, fire breaks
out in the dry season, all the rice may be destroyed, especi-
ally if the village is small.

The amount of seed needed for a large farm is about four
bushels, which in a good year should return forty, in a bad
year twenty-five-fold, in productive areas.

In the north, where the land is not so good, and grass-
land — less productive than bush — is sometimes put under
cultivation, the ratio of produce to seed is far smaller, and
the result is considerable scarcity of seed.

At Kuntaia one man stated that he had got sixteen
shillings' worth of rice, and was keeping half for seed ; a
good year would have produced 25 per cent. more. To clear
the farm, work was done by himself, his wife, two small
boys, and twenty-two helpers.

Another man got £2 10s. worth, and was keeping half
for seed; a third got sixteen shillings' worth, and did not
know how much seed he would have.

A fourth man stated that he was living on bush yams, as
he had got nothing from his farms ; in former years he had
got £8 or £9 worth. From £2 worth of seed he had got £4
worth of rice, but from that he fed three brothers and three
women ; for a boy does not begin to make his own farm till he
is twenty or has got a wife ; some even wait till a child is born.

His guinea-corn, which should return nearly twenty-fold,

J 74

was bad, and he had got nothing from four shillings' worth
of seed. He had made his farm in the grass field, and
planted no maize, as it does not grow well there ; his cassava
was eaten by bush pig.

His millet (tqbqio) had not flourished. Only his peni
was fair : he had got sixfold return from four shillings'
worth of seed.

Enquiry showed that a good deal of this man's troubles
arose from lack of initiative. Except the chief, no one in
the district thought it worth while to fence his farm as a
protection against wild animals, and this particular indi-
vidual alleged that it was impossible for one man to fence
a farm. The idea of co-operation in such work had not
occurred to him or others.

The workers on a man's farm are himself and his wives
and children ; his unmarried, and in some cases also his
married, brothers ; his sons-in-law ; and helpers, who receive
their food and a trifling wage.

Some of the rites connected with farming have been
noticed under the heading satka ; a brief survey of them in
order is given. When the first rains fall, the farmer makes
rice-bread and offers it with prayers for abundance of rice ;
then bread and water are sprinkled over the matchets,
which are collected in the compound ; some bread is put on
the top of a stump, and no work is done on that day.

In some places a stone is put clown in the centre of the
farm with four kola under it and a fowl or bread offered.
Then the saplings are cut.

There do not appear to lie any rites connected with firing
the farm; but before hoeing they sacrifice rice, which is
eaten by all workers and passers-by.

After hoeing, a fan may be offered on the stone and then
hung in the farm to blow away evil influences. Rice is then
sow r n broadcast.

No further ceremonies are needed till harvest approaches,
if we except the bqmpa rites (see p. 67) against witches,
etc., which also precede the hoeing.

175

When the rice is ripe, a fowl may be sacrificed and some
rice eaten, a handful of which is put on a stone in the road
to the farm for krifi that want to spoil the rice, and for the
anfom af i (dead people), who come out again, or rice may be
offered on the graves : " from the bush which you left, and
we farm now, we want to take rice." Some of the new rice
may also be beaten and carried into the town, to be put at
the head of the owner's sleeping-place for two nights and
then shared among the household.

On the first day that rice is cut, a young daughter of the
farmer may cut rice and beat it, and the owner goes alone to
the stone and sacrifices some of it.

Elsewhere leaves are cut in the bush and scmeezed into
water till scum collects ; the rice is put in the water ; a fowl
is brought and allowed to pick up the rice, as a rite of
divination, to see if the ancestors are glad at the cutting of
the rice. The fowl is killed after the harvest and all the
people eat.

Before collecting the rice, a satka or bempa may be
made for the krifi and witches, by putting a calabash of
water, an ant-heap, burnt rice husks, and rice-bread at the
entrance to the farm.

An axe used for felling big trees may be put down on the
threshing-floor, and bread offered before threshing.

Before taking the rice to the granary, they may sacrifice
with water and a stone in a pot, which is put on the top of
the rice and transferred to the granary with it.

AVlien the farm-work is finished and the rice brought in,
each man, in some places, brings a little rice and cooks it
in public, because children and old people should eat and ask
a blessing on the rice. Any rice left over should be given to
the oldest person. Just as the prayer of a chief was regarded
as specially powerful, so the intercession of old people is held
to be more beneficial.

Palm wine is made in some places by half severing the
trunk ; this involves the destruction of the tree.

Elsewhere a hole is bored just below the branches, and, in

176

a young tree, palm wine is obtainable in three days ; the
yield goes on for twenty days.

Palm-oil is made as follows : A small round " basket " is
made of sticks driven into the ground and lined with leaves ;
this is filled with partially dried palm nuts and covered with
leaves ; heavy stones are put on the top, and it is left for five
days. Then the nuts are brazed in mortars, and the husks
loosened and afterwards boiled; to the oil obtained in this
way is added the oil got from the boiling water poured over
the nuts. The nuts are cracked and the kernels boiled to
extract nut-oil.

Plate XIX.

Plate XX.

T*"^

177

XX.— TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE

Pottery. — Pottery is seldom made in the Timne country
at the present day, and the woman who undertook to give a
demonstration had not potted for over twenty years according
to her own account.

The clay (yofta) mixed with water was pounded on a flat
board (nab en) and picked over for stones; rolls of clay
(bo Ian) were made with the right hand only, and then a
base (akoto kambQl), the top of which was formed with the
hand (Plate XIX) ; rolls were applied one by one to the base
and finally the pot was taken off the boards and put on some
leaves.

The outside was smoothed with a knife and the inside
pressed and thinned with a piece of calabash. Finally the
top was cut with a piece of midrib of palm and made smooth
and a rim formed with a wet cloth and piece of calabash
(Plate XX). After drying in the sun for three days, it was
put over a few burning leaves to hasten the drying and
finally the base, which was a solid block, was cut off, and
the pot was ready for burning.

In the Mqndi country pot-making is a regular business
in some places. The prices were given as follows : —

(1) Pot cover (ke, bo) ... 1-2 leaves of tobacco.

(2) Small pot (few u) .... 3d.

(3) „ „ (keve) ... 3d.
with large lip.

(4) Oil pot (dumb u) ... 3d. to 2s.

(5) Water pot (dumali)... „ „ „

The work was begun by making a cone (poga ti) six
inches high, with a hole in the centre, which was enlarged
bit by bit ; then the outside, which was left rough at first,

178

was scraped till no trace remained of the rolls of which it had
been built up.

The cone was put upon a board, on which water was
freely sprinkled to ensure free rotation of the pot in working ;
and the rolls were applied in succession to the hollowed
cone, which now took the form of the lower part of a pot.
The outside was scraped from the bottom upwards and the
inside worked with the fingers and a piece of calabash to thin
the wall of the pot ; then a wet rag was taken to enlarge the
top of the neck and make a lip.

A large pot was made with the base on a piece of calabash
which rested on a lump of wet clay ; this ensured stability
and mobility.

The clay for all pots was dry and powdery before water
was added ; it was then trodden and pounded to ensure
uniformity of consistence.

After drying for some days the pots were heated over a
small fire and the drying hearth prepared of two layers of
wood, crossways.. On this pots were piled, and round them
wood standing on end.

Burning continued for about half an hour and then the
pots were withdrawn with a long pole and turned black with
a decoction of jeko tree.

Fishing. — The streams and rivers of Sierra Leone are
extraordinarily rich in fish, and when the waters are low
women catch large quantities of small fish in nets that they
push along the bottom.

Anyone may fish in a river, but at times, when a woman
marries, her people send fish to the river of the town she
goes to, that she may claim to take her catch by night.

Apart from this there are methods which demand concerted
action on the part of the community ; a portion of the river
may be dammed when the water is low and fish poison used
to stupefy all that are enclosed within the walls.

Nets are used from eighty to one hundred yards long ;
smaller ones, with stones as sinkers, are forty yards long. To
work these the people of four towns come together and the

179

nets are stretched from bank to bank and then down the
river. A hundred fish may be caught at each draught.

In the smaller stream fish traps and fences are prepared in
the dry season ; such traps are individual property, and a
trap put down gives the owner a claim to the spot another
year, even if the land is not his own.

ASTRONOMY, etc. — Names are used for the morning star
(Lolo) and evening star (B'ankabala), and the latter is
said to be the wife of the moon.

The only constellation they recognise is Masare, which
seems to be the Pleiades or (and) Orion, but no one could
point out Masare, and such different accounts are given of
the time when it is visible that the identification is
doubtful.

They say that Masare stands like a man and shoots at
birds or at a sacred bush in which are buffalo. When he
shoots, meteors begin to fall and the rains begin. This
suggests that the season is April.

On the other hand, the identification of the bag { = sword),
and the statement that one side is paralysed, correspond so
nearly to Orion that the season is of less importance.

When meteors fall, a spectator must say, " I don't see you
alone, I see you with many people," or he will soon die.
Meteors are, however, confused with hail, which is mixed
with water and put on the rice seed.

An eclipse is called Yankoba (from an Arabic word), and
they say that the sun swallows the moon : " Each lias its own
road and when they are trying to get to their places for the
New Year, people come out and dance " ; how far this refers
to an eclipse is not clear.

Another account says the moon is a king and the sun a
great warrior who holds the moon. When the moon dies
Kurumasaba buries it in the sky.

Another informant thought that something like a cat
caught the moon ; they beat drums to drive it away. This
cat was identified with Yankoba in one place.

No one sleeps during an eclipse ; they say, " Let Yankoba

n 2

180

leave the moon alone " ; if someone sleeps and the moon is
swallowed altogether, that person will die. Women sing Poro
songs and men sing Bundu songs during an eclipse.

A halo means the death of a chief (sun) or evil in the
country (moon).

The rainbow comes from an ant-hill, in which is a krii'i ;
no one should point at it or he will become " red," i.e. leprous.
The rainbow is put up by the krifi to keep the rain from his
dwelling place, for he has put his clothes and rice out to dry.
A man who stands on such an ant-hill becomes mad if the
rainbow comes out, unless he has " four eyes."

Another account of the rainbow says that it is Bai Farama's
bow.

No explanation of a whirlwind (konkofslfol) is given;
but no one would dare to throw stones at it ; it is G od's
power.

Susu. — Stone axes are occasionally found and are known
as gal ainyi berai (lightning?). A small wedge, presented
by Alimami Suri of Somaia, was dark like plumbago, and
somewhat greasy, with well-marked striations.

Koranko. — A stone " with five sides " is said to be picked
up where lightning strikes. A dog comes with the flash and
jumps round for a few minutes and then vanishes ; it has a
quantity of hair.

181

NOTE ON THE BOTANICAL FEATURES OF
SIERRA LEONE.

By Dr. 0. Stapf.

So far no attempt has been made to describe systematically
the principal features of the vegetation of Sierra Leone or to
analyse it according to its composition and relationship with
the great floral regions of Tropical Africa. Some rough ideas
may be gathered from Scott Elliot's Report on the District
traversed by the Anglo-French Boundary Commission
(Colonial Reports, Miscellaneous, No. 3, 1893), and from
Dr. Chevalier's observations made near the source of the
Niger and close to the Sierra Leone boundary. A great deal of
information could also be obtained from a study of the volumes
of the Flora of Tropical Africa and the ample material which
since their publication has accumulated at Kew. To do this
is however, at present, out of the question, for lack of time.
On the other hand, much of this additional material has passed
through my hands, and I have had a special opportunity
of collecting all the available information concerning the
Flora of Liberia, whilst Dr. Chevalier's admirable work has
thrown much light on the phytogeography of the coterminous
districts of Senegambia and French Guinea. I may, therefore,
be pardoned for the present attempt of sketching in the most
general outlines the main types of the vegetation of the
Colony and its floral affinities.

Three great regional belts traverse tropical West Africa
from east to west. They are from north to south : (1) the
desert belt of the Sahara ; (2) the steppe belt of the Sudan ; and
(3) the forest belt of Upper Guinea. Sierra Leone lies
entirely outside the desert belt of the Sahara, whilst the
forest belt of Upper Guinea sweeps across the south-eastern

182

frontier districts and a long, broad coastal zone, much broken
up and thinning out towards the lower Scarcies, and the
French Kiviere du Sud until it disappears in the neighbour-
hood of Casamance. All the country on the land side of the
forest belt is grasse steppe or savannah, greatly varied by the
presence of narrow bands of river woods, open park land,
bush of greater or lesser density, and areas under cultivation.
It is not possible, at present, to indicate even roughly the
width of the forest belt in its different sections, and no doubt
the boundary line between it and the steppe belt will be found
to be extremely irregular. The vegetation of the forest belt is
generally compact and often almost impenetrable evergreen
rain forest, consisting at least up to 2,000 feet of tall trees
interlaced with creepers ; above this altitude, which is, how-
ever, not often exceeded, the tree growth becomes stunted
and dwarfed. The rain forest is often interrupted by
swamp areas studded with young oil palms and clearings,
overgrown with tall grass and by rice and millet fields, whilst
along the coast other types of vegetation take its place, as the
well-known mangrove formation, in the tidal regions of the
estuaries of the rivers, and the " mangrove orchards " of the
Bulom shore ; a type of strand bush above high-water mark,
where the coast is formed by a low shelf of land ; and the
sand beach formation of creeping grasses and halophilous
herbs, among which Ipomaea pes Gaprae is the most
striking object. The evergreen rain forest is essentially
hygrophilous and hydrophilous ; that is, dependent on a
voluminous supply of water by streams, or a high degree of
atmospheric moisture and an excessive rainfall such as the
coast of Sierra Leone possesses. That the belt over the
greater part of the area is so much broken up is mainly due
to the persistent clearing of large tracts for purposes of
cultivation, but in places also no doubt to local conditions.

The forest belt covers probably not more than 20 to 25 per
cent, of the area of the Colony, the remainder being all steppe
with the variations already indicated. This steppe up to
2,000 feet is characterised by the predominance of coarse

183

grasses, usually up to 8 feet, but occasionally to 12 feet and
even 15 feet in height, and a great variety of herbs, inter-
spersed with trees or patches of woods of a more or less open
kind, or of dense bush 20 to 30 feet high, all of which gives
it frequently a park-like appearance. In some of the
mountainous districts the bush may assume the aspect of a
low forest and cover large areas. But the tableland of the
north- east between 2,000 and 3,000 feet, is generally covered
with a much lower (2 to 3 feet) growth of grasses and herbs
and the trees are so much scattered as to produce not any
longer the impression of park scenery. All this vegetation
is xerophilous or subxerophilous. It is only along the alluvia
of the rivers that we come across narrow bands of hygrophilous
woods, in reality continuations of the forest belt. Nowhere
does the land rise high enough to make room for a distinct
highland flora.

Turning to the composition of the flora, we find that the
evergreen rain forest is, in Sierra Leone, essentially the same
as in the more eastern sections of Upper Guinea, only slightly
modified by the accession of endemic elements, and the dis-
appearance of others. The same also applies to the mangrove
formation. Similarly the steppe flora of Sierra Leone in its
composition continues the characters of the steppes of
Southern Senegambia and of French Guinea with a moderate
influx of peculiar types. Thus in neither of its main
constituents can the flora of Sierra Leone claim the rank of a
particularly specialised section of the flora of West Africa.
To what extent it might be treated as a subordinate section
is still an open question. One peculiarity of the West
African flora, the presence of a not inconsiderable American-
African element, is, as might be expected, also manifest in
the flora of Sierra Leone.

The economic wealth of the indigenous flora of Sierra Leone
is no doubt considerable, as so many of the timber, dye, rubber,
oil, gum, fibre plants, etc., of West Africa extend into Sierra
Leone. A list of the economic plants of the Colony compiled
from the earlier records contained in Moloney's " Sketch of

184

the Forestry of West Africa," and in Scott Elliot's " Report on
the Anglo-French Boundary Commission," and revised and
amplified from the collections obtained more recently, would,
no doubt, give us a clear idea of the natural resources of the
plant world of Sierra Leone. But to make it reliable and
complete will involve a general census of the flowering plants
of the Colony. This would be the more valuable, as it could
serve as a basis for any problem arising in connection with
the flora of the country.

185

GLOSSARY.

Bare — a roofed enclosure for meetings, etc.

Bern pa — a rite resembling satka in every feature, except

that the name of Kurumasaba is not mentioned.
Betieli — the same as yunkoli, circumciser.
Boromasar — ancestral stones; stones which represent the

ancestors.
Bogboro — the bag in which the emblems of a chief are

kept.
Bundu — woman's initiation society.
Four-eyed — used of a diviner, or other person who can see

krifi, ghosts, etc.
Kan d e — paramount chief.
Kaiita — (a) the house in which the kande is shut up during

the preliminary ceremonies ; (b) the charms for closing

the farm against witches, etc.
K a p a r — sub-chief.

Konte — small gong struck with a ring.
Krifi — ■((>) demi-god or spirit ; (b) dead man; (e) tutelar of

secret society.
Kur — family in the restricted sense.
Mat' oi — mashed leaves used for purificatory ceremonies.
Masam — " forbidden " ; a ritual prohibition.
Mori man — a Mohammedan.
Orok — grandson; the sister's son of a paramount chief who

acts as regent after his decease.
Poro — man's secret society.

Prayer board — wood inscribed with Arabic prayers.
Rabenle — man's secret, society, corresponding, in part, to

Por< ».
Rokian, rokina — the same as boromasar.
Eokrifi — the place of the dead.

N 3

186

Satka — usually translated " sacrifice," but more accurately

•' blessing."
Sema — circumcised person.

8 in a, si a n — " medicine " for catching witches, tbieves, etc.
Soko — a member of the Poro Society.
Turuma — the meeting place of the Eabenle.
Wanka — charm or magical implement against tbieves.
Y u n k o 1 i — circumciser.

1ST

SECOND GLOSSARY OF BOTANICAL

NAMES.

abari, ? Cyrtosperma sp.

afil, l Scleria Barteri, Boeck ; *Desmodium laswcarpum, DC.

akam, Bixa orellana, Linn.

akimban (5778), Platystoma africanum, Beauv.

akon, Agelaea villosa, Planch.

ankonta (1 77).

ankonkorot, Cassia Sieberiana, DC.

boluutai, Akhornea cordifolia, Mull. Arg.

qbamp (2538).

^bgpr (60).

^buiik, LHoscorea sativa, Linn.

gbusuk, Clerodendron scandens, Beauv.

tjbeli, Phyllanthus florifound/us, Mull. Arg.

ekant (248), Anisophyllea laurina, Don.

^kati (3612), Combretum grandijlorwn, Don.

qlabo, Sapindaceae sp.

$tep (1544).

Qnana (? 109), Ficus eocasperata, Vdhl.

^purpur, l Dalbergia sp. : z Cardiospermum BJalicacabum,

Linn.
Qpilpila (6968).
gronko (44).

etanke, Sorindeia juglandifolia, Planch.
Qtol(1467).

Qtoma, Dioscun c prehensilis, Ben fit.
etet, Thalia genieulata, Linn.
fjtitij l Mdesobotrya sparsijlora, ffutchiiison ; ^Heisteria parvi-

folia, Sm.
fori, Craterispermum taurine m, Benth.

188

kabe,te (5929).

kalmiitila (904).

kafeka, corkwood.

kakump, Dracaena Perrotteti, Baiter.

kalop (1544).

kalolum, Selaginella Vogelii, Spring.

katap, Palisota thyrsiflora, Benth.

katop (256).

kakant, Oldenlandia macrophylla, DC.

knmban, ? Usteria guineensis, Don.

mabele (56] ). Goffea jasminoides, Welw.

Qiakunt (6593).

mayente, Sesamum indicum.

niiiita, Hugonia Planchoni, Hk.f.

peni, DigUaria longifiora, Pers.

ratorik (? 606), Gominelina nudifiora, Linn.

tabese (1142).

tasur(1846).

tobqyo, Sorghum halepeme, Pers., var.

In a certain number of cases the names have not yet been
determined ; the numbers in brackets are those of the
corresponding specimens at Kew.

Where two names are given, specimens of both were
collected under one name, and it has not been possible to
discriminate. '

Many names given in the Eeport are unidentified owing to
the specimens having been collected under other names.

189

INDEX.

abe,mpa, 32, 34, 39, 41 sq., 67 sq., 174.

Adonis, gardens of, 30.

adoption, 159, 165.

adultery, 75, 97, 101, 102.

akonto, 46.

animism. 66, 71, 74, 93, 128.

see also krifi, dead.
Ankoi, 152.
anthill, 55, 150, 180.
Aronso, 34.
astronomy, 179.
asur, 78, 80.
ate,t tot, 36.
Atobankere, 31.

automatic action of wanka, 66, 67.
automatisms, 83 sq.
avoidance, 74.

" bad dead.." 43.

Bai Farama, 25.

banana, shooting at, 58, 149.

beating a god, 33.

birth, 28, 76, 79, 108 sq.

blacksmith, 77, 81, 150.

blood, 57, 157.

blood money, 154.

body marks, 111.

boro masar, 41.

botany, 5, 181.

bride-price, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101.

190

bridge, 12.

Bubm, 7, 10, 103 sq., 144, 152.

bullroarer, 150.

Bundu, 13, 28, 76, 95, 101, 122, 151, 152.

burial, 39, 49, 51, 77, 78, 118 sq., 146.